Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, long a Democratic party boss in North Jersey, has been sentenced to 11 years in federal prison for political corruption in a case that garnered international attention for its gold bar bribes.
This was the third federal investigation into the powerful senator and was clearly not the charm for him.
His case proved New Jersey’s international reputation as the Soprano State and adds to the reputation of Hudson County as the heart of New Jersey’s culture of corruption. The last U.S. senator to go to prison was New Jersey’s U.S. Sen. Harrison Williams, who was convicted of bribery in the ABSCAM case in 1981.
Menendez is the seventh U.S. senator convicted of a federal crime, the first convicted as a foreign agent, and the first indicted twice for bribery.
The Soprano State is littered with public officials who contribute to the state’s culture of corruption because they believe they are entitled to more than just their salaries.
A jury convicted Menendez, 71, on 16 counts, including bribery, wire fraud, obstruction of justice and conspiring to act as a foreign agent. A 17-year veteran of the Senate and chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Menendez was charged with using his clout to help curb federal investigations and to secure business deals with officials from Egypt and Qatar.
Menendez resigned in August after his conviction for doing those favors for three New Jersey businessmen and the Egyptian government in exchange for the traditional Soprano State bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, including the headline-grabbing gold bars, cash, a Mercedes and a no-show job for his future wife.
U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein said Menendez at some point along the way began working for his own good instead of the public good. “Greed was certainly part of it,” the judge said. “Hubris was a part of it.”
Menendez maintained his innocence and plans to appeal. Pleading for leniency inside the courtroom before the sentencing, Menendez turned to hubris outside the courthouse in what appeared to all to be an appeal to Republican President Trump. “President Trump is right. This process is political and corrupted to the core.”
Two of the businessmen in the case were sentenced with Menendez. Fred Daibes was sentenced to seven years, Wael Hana to eight. A third businessman, who pleaded guilty in the case, has yet to be sentenced. Menendez’ wife Nadine Arslanian Menendez has yet to have her trial.
Menendez was not taken into custody, but was told to report to prison on June 6, giving him time to attend his wife’s trial and the judge time to consider Menendez’ request to remain free pending appeal. A defense attorney argued that a sentence of 10 years or more would not allow Menendez to serve his sentence at a minimum-security prison.
Menendez’ full history of allegations of corruption can be found in The Soprano State Chapters 3, 8 and 9and at thesopranostate.com.
Seven years ago, a hung jury allowed Menendez to escape federal charges that he took bribes from a Florida doctor in exchange for luxury gifts. In 2006, a federal probe of Menendez, then a U.S. representative, went nowhere after federal investigators probed whether Menendez profited by steering federal funds to an agency that paid him rent for a building that he owned. A key witness in the case was dead.
Menendez’ rise to political power ironically began when he testified against his mentor Hudson County state Sen. William Musto, who was convicted of racketeering in 1982.
Several factors could play into Menendez’ success with an appeal. He twice requested a new trial after prosecutors sent evidence to the jury that was argued should have been excluded. And the U.S. Supreme Court has damaged federal prosecutors’ ability to crack down on corruption by narrowing the definition of bribery.
Charles Stile, NorthJersey.com, Jan. 30, 2025; Tracey Tully and Benjamin Weiser, The New York Times, Jan. 29, 2025; Salvador Rizzo and Shayna Jacobs, Washington Post, Jan. 29, 2025; Kristie Cattafi and Katie Sobko, NorthJersey.com, Jan. 29, 2025
In Soprano State style, Clark Township Mayor Sal Bonaccorso admitted to public corruption just nine days after he was sworn in as the longest serving mayor in town history.
Bonaccorso, 64, pleaded guilty to using the mayor’s office to run his landscaping business and to forging credentials for the removal of hundreds of underground oil tanks in two dozen communities.
Despite charges filed a year earlier, Bonaccorso ran for reelection to his seventh term, and in Soprano State tradition, won reelection with 69 percent of the vote.
Mayor for 24 years in what is described as a GOP stronghold, a small suburban town in Union County, Bonaccorso described the charges to NJ Advance Media as “another weaponization against a MAGA Republican.”
In addition to using township equipment and employees to run his landscaping business, Bonaccorso’s company falsified an engineer’s signature on permit applications for tank removals and falsified the required involvement by an engineer in supervising and inspecting the projects, according to the charges. The value of the oil tank fraud amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Platkin.
Bonaccorso is no stranger to scandal. He came under fire in 2022 when he and two other township officials were secretly recorded making racist remarks and disparaging comments about female police officers. A resulting whistleblower lawsuit was settled for $400,000. While no charges were filed, Platkin labeled the settlement a misuse of public resources to coverup wrongs.
Riley Yates, NJ Advance Media, Jan. 10, 2025; NJ Attorney General Matthew Platkin, Jan. 10, 2025.
The new CEO of the State Commission of Investigation resigned after four days in the wake of an Asbury Park Press article detailing her dual residency (in Maryland and New Jersey) and her second full-time job as a professor at Howard University.
Prior to being named CEO, Tiffany Williams Brewer since July served as interim executive director of the SCI where anonymous sources told the APP she only came into the office on Tuesdays. She has been at the SCI as its chair since 2022.
“This is the watchdog agency that looks into waste, fraud and abuse, “a source told reporters Mike Davis and Michael L. Diamond during their detailed investigation. “And this is what’s happening within their own walls.”
The SCI is one of the few venerated agencies in New Jersey. You can find it in Chapters 2, 6, 8 and 9 of The Soprano State. In Chapter 8, “The Gospel According to the Mob,” we note that the SCI was created in 1968 after state Assistant Attorney General William J. Brennan III declared three members of the state legislature “entirely too comfortable with organized crime.”
The Soprano State describes the SCI as “tough and aggressive” and “hell on wheels for crooks.” The agency continues its good work, despite a blow during Gov. Christie Whitman’s administration that now forces the agency to immediately report anything that appears criminal to the state attorney general.
Williams Brewer, a lawyer and full-time assistant professor at Howard University since 2022, said she broke no laws, but said she resigned because employee-driven mischaracterizations of her actions to the media created a toxic climate that undermined the integrity of the agency.
Williams Brewer, when buying a house last year in Maryland, declared that state as her principal residence, APP reported. A spokesperson for the SCI maintained her principal residence was New Jersey. New Jersey mandates that public employees establish New Jersey as principal residence within a year of being hired.
Williams Brewer was earning $175,000 as SCI’s interim executive director. The title of CEO would likely have meant a salary of between $210,000 and $295,000, the APP reported.
Mike Davis And Michael L. Diamond, Asbury Park Press, Jan. 9 and 10, 2025.
