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By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez was sentenced on Wednesday to 11 years in prison for taking bribes including gold bars in exchange for favors for Egypt and New Jersey businessmen.
U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein imposed the sentence at a hearing in Manhattan federal court, following Menendez's conviction last July.
The judge ordered Menendez to begin his prison term on June 6, allowing him to attend his wife Nadine Menendez's corruption trial starting in March.
"You were successful, powerful. You stood at the apex of our political system," Stein said at the sentencing. "I don't know what led you to commit these crimes."
Menendez, a once-powerful Democrat who represented New Jersey for 18-1/2 years in the Senate and chaired that body's foreign relations committee, was found guilty in July on all 16 felony counts he faced, including bribery and fraud.
He was also found guilty of acting as a foreign agent, a first for a U.S. senator.
Menendez, 71, resigned from the Senate in August.
In a tearful address to the court before being sentenced, Menendez said he was "chastened" by the verdict, and asked that his decades as a federal and local elected official weigh in favor of leniency.
"Other than family, I have lost everything I have cared about," Menendez said. "For someone who spent his entire life in public service, every day I'm awake is a punishment."
Prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's Office sought a 15-year sentence for Menendez.
They say he shepherded military aid to Egypt, provided assistance to Qatar, and interfered in local prosecutions of allied businessmen in exchange for bribes including gold, cash and a Mercedes-Benz.
"There are not many offenses involving an abuse of power on the scale of Menendez's," prosecutor Paul Monteleoni told the court.
Earlier on Wednesday, Stein sentenced two New Jersey businessmen who were also convicted at Menendez's trial.
Fred Daibes received seven years in prison, while Wael Hana got just over eight years.
Menendez's lawyers had said the former senator should spend no more than 2-1/4 years behind bars, citing his age, public service, charitable works, devotion to family, and financial and professional ruin.
But after learning Daibes' and Hana's sentences, Menendez's defense lawyer Adam Fee revised his recommendation, and asked that his client receive no more than eight years in prison.
Nadine Menendez was to be tried with her husband on corruption charges, but her trial was postponed after her lawyers said she needed treatment for breast cancer. Her trial is now scheduled for March 18, and she has pleaded not guilty.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
