State seeks life ban on Menendez government employment

The New Jersey Attorney General’s office will seek a court order to permanently bar former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez from ever holding public employment in the state following his conviction on federal corruption charges last year.

If a Superior Court judge approves the action, Menendez could face a loss of his state pension; the final decision will be made by the Public Employees’ Retirement System board of trustees.

Under the terms outlined by the state, Menendez would be disqualified from holding any future position of “honor, trust, or profit.”

“Bob Menendez abused his high-ranking position in the U.S. Senate for his own personal and financial benefit, betraying the people who elected him and the oath he swore to serve their interests and not his own. Today, my office sought a court order ensuring he will be given no such opportunity again in New Jersey,” said Attorney General Matt Platkin.  “My office is committed to ensuring that the rule of law endures, that it is applied equally and fairly regardless of political concerns and affiliations, and that corruption has consequences.”

Menendez earns $1,066 monthly from his more than fourteen years of service as a Union City local officeholder, state legislator, and various other posts.  He began drawing his state pension in 2019 while serving in the U.S. Senate.

Three Morris County GOP lawmakers — Mike Inganamort (R-Chester), Jay Webber (R-Morris Plains), and Aura Dunn (R-Mendham) — have introduced legislation that would require the loss of pension for public officials like Menendez found guilty of public corruption.

Once one of New Jersey’s most powerful political figures, Menendez has been sentenced to eleven years in prison.

He was convicted last July on 16 charges – including bribery, obstruction of justice, and acting as an unregistered foreign agent – for accepting cash, gifts, and gold bars from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for using his influence in Washington to assist them and their allies. The senator, who has maintained his innocence ever since the charges were first unsealed, has appealed his conviction.

Menendez is due to begin his incarceration on June 6.  His wife, Nadine, was convicted on federal corruption charges in a separate trial last month; she is awaiting sentencing.

A Democrat from Hudson County, Menendez spent four decades slowly rising through the ranks of New Jersey politics, beginning in local office in Union City before becoming a state legislator, U.S. congressman, and finally in 2006 a U.S. senator. In 2013, he became the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he chaired the powerful committee twice; he was also one of New Jersey’s major political power brokers, one more than willing to punish his enemies and elevate his allies (including his son, now-Congressman Rob Menendez).

But the whiff of corruption tended to follow Menendez wherever he went. Ethical questions dogged the senator during his first Senate run in 2006, and in 2015, he was charged in a federal bribery case involving a Florida eye doctor; the case ultimately ended in a mistrial, and Menendez’s fellow Democrats and Senate colleagues largely stuck behind him.

The same was not true in September 2023, when prosecutors in the Southern District of New York unveiled bombshell allegations against the senator, detailing in a 39-page indictment how Menendez had used the powers of his office for personal gain. Struck by the audacity of the charges, New Jersey Democrats abandoned Menendez en masse, and when Menendez refused to resign his seat, then-Rep. Andy Kim launched a primary challenge against him.

After repeated attempts to delay or derail the case went nowhere, Menendez’s eight-week trial began last May, and it ended in jurors convicting him on all counts in July. Menendez continued to profess his innocence, but shortly after his conviction was handed down, he announced he would resign from the Senate, officially ending nearly 40 straight years in public office.

In the months following his conviction, Menendez made further efforts to undo the outcome and receive a new trial – particularly after prosecutors admitted to making a series of minor mistakes in the evidence they provided to jurors – but he was rebuffed. Menendez has also worked to obtain a presidential pardon from Donald Trump, making several public statements aligning himself with Trump against the so-called “Wild West” of the Southern District of New York.