US Senator Bob Menendez was pleaded guilty yesterday guilty of all corruption charges brought against him, including accepting bribes in gold and cash from three New Jersey businessmen and acting as an agent of the Egyptian government, AP reported, citing BTA.
Top Democrats, including U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and fellow New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, quickly called out Menendez, who has been in the Senate since 2006 and avoided conviction in a previous corruption trial in 2017 ., to resign.
The jury began deliberations on Friday and deliberated for more than 12 hours over three days before reaching their verdict in the nine-week trial. Menendez, 70, pleads "not guilty" on the 16 charges.
After the sentencing, Menendez told reporters outside the courthouse that he would appeal, but did not say whether he would resign. "I have never broken my public oath. I have never been anything but a patriot of my country and for my country," Menendez, who resigned as chairman of the influential US Senate Foreign Relations Committee after the indictment, told reporters. "I have never been a foreign agent," Menendez added, quoted by Reuters.
Menendez's sentence will be announced on October 29, a week before the November 5 election in which he ran as an independent for another six-year term in the Senate.