A federal judge took the unusual step of removing a defense filing from the public docket after concluding that Nadine Menendez’s own attorneys had publicly disclosed extensive private medical information.
In an order issued Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Stein said Menendez’s attorney, Edward Canter, filed a multi-page request on July 2 seeking to postpone the defendant’s surrender to the Bureau of Prisons. The motion, according to the court, included “extensive intimate details of the defendant’s medical condition and surgical interventions.”
“Astonishingly, defendant’s attorneys filed this document on the public record,” the judge wrote.
The court said it acted on its own initiative that same evening to delete the filing “in order to protect defendant’s privacy.”
Last week, Menendez filed a last-minute request to postpone her July 10 surrender to federal prison, citing ongoing breast cancer-related surgeries. She did so 90 minutes before the court closed for the July 4 holiday weekend – a move that appeared to annoy Stein.
Menendez, the wife of imprisoned former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, was set to begin her 54-month prison sentence on Friday.
In April 2025, she was found guilty on 15 charges of bribery, obstruction of justice, and helping her husband become an unregistered agent of the Egyptian government. She was sentenced in September 2025.
Stein directed Canter to confer and agree on appropriate redactions before refiling the motion on the public docket.
“The parties are to agree on the appropriate redactions in that document and file an agreed-upon redacted document on the public record no later than 12 noon on Wednesday, July 8, 2026,” Stein’s order states.
Judges frequently seal or redact court filings containing sensitive medical information, but it is uncommon for a court to intervene of its own accord to remove a filing after determining that a party inadvertently disclosed highly personal health details in a public submission.
The order does not identify which portions of the filing must be redacted. Unless the court orders otherwise, a redacted version of the surrender-delay request is expected to be publicly available by the Wednesday deadline.
Stein rejected her June bid to remain free on bail while she appeals.
Menendez was accused of facilitating the connections between her husband and his bribers, and she herself financially benefited from the transactions, most famously in her receipt of a Mercedes-Benz.
Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11-years in prison and began serving his sentence on June 17, 2025.