Menendez Co-Conspirators Sentenced to Prison as Ex-Senator Awaits Fate

Two of former Senator Robert Menendez’s co-defendants were sentenced on Wednesday to lengthy prison terms, after being convicted last year of participating in a brazen scheme of bribery and corruption.

Fred Daibes, a New Jersey businessman, was sentenced to seven years in prison and fined $1.75 million.

Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman whom prosecutors described as the linchpin of a plan to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to Mr. Menendez, was sentenced to slightly more than eight years in prison and fined $1.3 million. Prosecutors had sought a 10-year sentence.

Mr. Menendez, the once-powerful Democratic senator from New Jersey, was scheduled to be sentenced later on Wednesday and could spend much of the rest of his life in prison.

Mr. Daibes, 67, offered an emotional address to the court before he was sentenced, stopping periodically to compose himself. He specifically cited his son, Anthony, who is autistic, as he asked the judge, Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Court in Manhattan, to impose a sentence significantly less than the nine years that prosecutors had recommended.

“I am going to ask you for mercy,” he said through tears, “not for me, but for Anthony.”

Judge Stein acknowledged the scores of letters written on behalf of Mr. Daibes attesting to his extraordinary and often anonymous acts of generosity, including large financial gifts to friends and the construction of a school for children with special needs.

But he noted the seriousness of Mr. Daibes’s conviction: bribing a U.S. senator in an effort to win favorable treatment from federal prosecutors on unrelated bank fraud charges in New Jersey.

“I just wish people would think about the impact on family members before they engage in criminal activity,” Judge Stein said, adding, “There’s a dark edge to what you’ve done.”

Mr. Daibes is expected to begin serving his seven-year sentence in early April.

Mr. Hana, a U.S. citizen born in Egypt, maintained his innocence before he was sentenced and said that his longtime friendship with Mr. Menendez’s wife, Nadine Menendez, had been “twisted into something it never was.”

“I never bribed Senator Menendez or asked his office for influence,” said Mr. Hana, who founded a halal certification company that won a monopoly with the government of Egypt and that prosecutors said was used to funnel bribes to Mr. Menendez through his wife.

Federal prosecutors, who have described Mr. Menendez’s conduct as possibly “the most serious for which a U.S. senator has been convicted in the history of the republic,” have asked Judge Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Court to impose a sentence of at least 15 years in prison.

Lawyers for Mr. Menendez, 71, citing his hardscrabble upbringing, life of service and devotion to his family, are seeking a much shorter term, of no more than 27 months, with “at least two years’ rigorous community service.”

The lawyers, Avi Weitzman and Adam Fee, also asked the judge to consider whether sparing him prison and instead sentencing him to home detention with the community service provision would best serve “the ends of justice in this case.”

Mr. Menendez has maintained his innocence and plans to appeal the verdict. A jury found him guilty on all 16 counts he faced, including bribery, extortion, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice, conspiracy and acting as an agent for Egypt.

He is the first U.S. senator to be convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign power and the seventh senator convicted of a federal crime while in office. He resigned in August.

A fourth defendant, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty last year and became a star witness against the senator at trial. He is to be sentenced in April.

Mr. Menendez’s sentencing, scheduled for 2 p.m., comes 16 months after prosecutors unsealed charges accusing the senator, then the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, including cash, bars of gold bullion and a Mercedes-Benz, in exchange for his willingness to wield his power abroad and at home.

Testimony and evidence presented at trial portrayed Mr. Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez, of conspiring during furtive dinners and on encrypted calls in a scheme that was largely aimed at increasing U.S. assistance to Egypt and helping three New Jersey businessmen: Mr. Daibes, Mr. Hana and Mr. Uribe.

“The defendants’ crimes amount to an extraordinary attempt, at the highest levels of the legislative branch, to corrupt the nation’s core sovereign powers over foreign relations and law enforcement,” the government wrote to Judge Stein.

This week, the former senator’s lawyers, saying the case presented difficult appellate questions, asked Judge Stein to allow Mr. Menendez to remain free on bond pending his appeal.

Ms. Menendez, 57, was to be tried with her husband, but her trial was postponed by the judge after her lawyers said she would be undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Ms. Menendez, who has pleaded not guilty, is now scheduled for trial on March 18.