Nadine Menendez has asked a federal judge to delay her July 10 prison surrender date until October 30 so she can complete medically necessary breast cancer reconstruction, citing complications from cancer treatment, multiple surgeries, and an email from the Federal Bureau of Prisons saying they have no objection to her receiving medical care before beginning her 54-month prison sentence.
In a letter filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Menendez’s attorney, Edward Canter, said the request is not an effort to revisit her sentence but rather to allow her to complete treatment that was already underway when she was sentenced last September.
“Mrs. Menendez does not seek to avoid her sentence, to shorten it, or to revisit it here,” Canter stated. “She asks only that the Court move her surrender date so that she can finish the cancer-related surgeries that were already underway when she was sentenced.”
Menendez, 58, was convicted on federal bribery and corruption charges and sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein to a prison term substantially below the advisory federal sentencing guidelines.
At sentencing, Stein said he intended to impose a sentence “substantially below the guideline range,” ultimately rejecting the government’s request for a sentence within the guidelines while still finding Menendez played a managerial role in parts of the bribery scheme that sent her husband, U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, to prison for eleven years.
The latest filing says Menendez was diagnosed with Grade 3 breast cancer in 2024 and underwent a mastectomy before beginning a complex, multi-stage reconstructive process.
According to her treating plastic surgeon, Dr. Lisa Schneider, Menendez has suffered severe nerve pain and complications following her cancer surgery. Schneider wrote that implant removal was completed on June 10, but Menendez still requires a 12-hour microsurgical DIEP flap reconstruction involving three surgeons at Lenox Hill Hospital. The procedure is scheduled for September 25, followed by months of rehabilitation and a final revision surgery that cannot occur for at least six months.
The defense says the reconstruction timeline was delayed by several factors beyond Menendez’s control, including corrective nasal surgery performed in November 2025 before she could safely undergo lengthy anesthesia, the temporary loss of health insurance after her husband resigned from the Senate in July 2024, and abnormal pre-operative laboratory results that postponed surgery earlier this year.
In an email included as an exhibit, Rick Stover, Special Assistant to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons, wrote that after reviewing Menendez’s medical information, “the BOP does not oppose the requested delay of Ms. Menendez’s surrender date to allow her to receive the medical care that her doctors have recommended.”
“We obviously defer to the Court as to any decision regarding this matter,” Stover added.
Canter also informed Stein on Tuesday that they had resolved a dispute over public access to the medical filings. After conferring with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, Menendez agreed that the records could be filed publicly, with only personally identifying information redacted, and the government likewise sought no additional redactions.
If Stein grants the request, Menendez would report to prison on October 30 instead of this week, allowing her to undergo the September reconstructive surgery and begin the critical early stages of recovery before entering federal custody.
Menendez filed a last-minute request to postpone her July 10 surrender to federal prison last Thursday, just 90 minutes before the court closed for the holiday weekend.
Federal prosecutors have until tomorrow to respond.