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Disgraced ex-Sen. Bob Menendez has asked to postpone his upcoming sentencing until after his cancer-ridden wife’s trial wraps up because the overlap “is too much to ask of any man.”
The 70-year-old New Jersey Democrat who was forced to resign following his conviction this summer is scheduled to learn his fate on Jan. 29 where he will face what could amount to a term of life imprisonment.
But his wife Nadine Menendez, 57, is slated to go on trial in the same case on Jan. 21 and his sentencing falling in the middle of her trial runs the risk “of poisoning the proceedings against” her because of media coverage, Menendez’s lawyer wrote in a letter to a judge Thursday.
Nadine — who was originally slated to go on trial at the same time as her husband — was granted a postponement after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, for which she had to undergo treatment.
Bob says he wants to be present throughout her trial to continue providing her with “emotional and physical support” and since it will “take a tremendous emotional toll on both Senator Menendez and his family,” his lawyer Avi Weitzman’s letter says.
“To ask him to face sentencing during the criminal trial of his wife, who is also in the midst of an ongoing battle against a life-threatening disease, is too much to ask of any man,” Weitzman wrote.
Weitzman said that federal prosecutors refused to agree to a postponement until after Nadine’s trial, which could last through March, wraps. Rather, they only agreed to move up Bob’s sentencing to before her trial starts.
But Weitzman says that if the sentencing takes place earlier, the media coverage runs the risk of “tainting the jury” in her case.
Nadine’s lawyer plans to file a letter also asking for his sentencing to be postponed, Weitzman says.
Bob was convicted by a jury in July of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for using his powerful seat in the Senate to advance the interests of three businessmen and the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
Some of the charges he was found guilty of carry a maximum term of 20 years imprisonment.
At trial, prosecutors said that Bob and Nadine accepted bribes in the form of 13 gold bars worth $150,000, hundreds of thousands in cash, a Mercedes and a no-show job for her.
Nadine was hit with the same charges as her husband. She has pleaded not guilty.
Earlier this month, Bob lost his bid for a new trial but he will likely file an appeal of his conviction and penalty after his sentencing.
The disgraced longtime Garden State senator — who dodged a prior unrelated corruption conviction following a 2017 mistrial — was forced to resign in August in light of his conviction.