OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
2:20 PM – Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Prosecutors say that the wife of former Senator Bob Menendez should serve a minimum of seven years in prison for her role in a bribery scheme that landed her husband in prison for 11 years.
In their Tuesday court filing, prosecutors told a judge that Nadine Menendez deserved the jail time because she knowingly helped to orchestrate illegal payoffs alongside the New Jersey Democrat.
“The Government considers the defendant, who played a critical role at the heart of the scheme, to be the second most culpable member of the scheme second only to [Bob] Menendez”, federal prosecutors said in their 58-page sentencing memorandum.
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Back in April, Nadine was found guilty of multiple federal crimes, such as bribery, honest-services wire fraud, conspiracy, acting as a foreign agent, and obstruction of justice. She was convicted on all 15 counts she faced.
The officials argued that Nadine’s sentence should be about as long as the sentences for the two businessmen who were convicted of paying the bribes. Fred Daibes was sentenced to seven years, while Wael Hana was sentenced to eight years behind bars.
In Nadine’s sentencing memorandum, her lawyers said she lived “a lifetime of trauma,” referencing her cancer diagnosis and her childhood in war-torn Lebanon. They argued for a sentence of only one year and one day.
Her team also said that a longer sentence, such as the time frame prosecutors are pushing for, would “obliterate any possibility” of her receiving the necessary treatment for her cancer, and that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is “ill-equipped” to provide the care she needs.
“Nadine is not her husband, or her co-defendants,” her lawyers insisted. “Despite all of the Government’s efforts to present her as a vixen, the reality is far from that.”
Both Bob (D-N.Y.) and Nadine maintain their pleas of “not guilty” of bribery.
The former Democrat senator is currently carrying out his 11-year sentence at a minimum-security federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, after being convicted of all 16 charges against him.
Nadine is set to receive her sentence on September 11th.
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