Daibes gets 3-year-term for federal bank fraud

Sentence concurrent to term in Menendez case

By: Kristie Cattafi
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... A North Jersey developer who was found guilty of bribery, fraud and obstruction of justice alongside Senator Bob Menendez was sentence th three years in prison for a separate federal banking case.
..... After years of postponements and a plea agreement that was tossed out after he was charged in connection with the Menendez case, Fred Daibes pleaded guilty in September [2024] to one of the original 14 counts in a federal indictment that alleged he circumvented loans through a bank he founded and later led as chairman.
..... He was sentenced on Friday [03/07/2025] in Newark to 37 months that will run concurrent with his seven-year sentence related to the Menendez case and to pay a $300,000 fine. Daibes' attorney Lawrence Lustberg said.
..... Lustburg said he and his client are "pleased" with the sentence, adding Daibes will not have to serve any additional time. The prosecution did ask for some of the sentence to be consecutive to the New York sentence.
..... Menendez was sentenced in January [2025] along with two New Jersey businessmen convicted on relat4ed federal charges in the U.S. strict Court in the Southern District of New York.
..... Menendez, 71, along with Edgewater developer Daibies and Egyptian American businessman Wael Hana, were convicted in July [2024] on charges related to a scheme in which Menendez and his wife, Nadine Arslanian Menendez, were found to have received, among other things, cash, gold bars and a luxury care in exchange for his using his political influence.
..... Menendez was convicted on 16 federal felony counts related to a bribery scheme and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison.
..... U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein sentenced Daibes to seven years in prison. He will also face a $1.75 million fine.
..... The original indictment said Daibes and Michael McManus, the chief financial officer of Edgewater-based Daibes enterprises, sued others - not named in charging documents - to secure millions of dollars in loans. The loans were used for Daibes' benefit without the knowledge of the bank or regulators at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, prosecutors said. The activity, documents show, occurred from 2008 through 2013.
..... The trial was postponed more than 10 times in the last eight years and McManus and Daibes had original guilty pleas thrown out after the Menendez indictment in 2023.
..... the federal judge accepted Daibes guilty plea in September, [2024] which cited a 2008 memo for a $1.8 million nominee loan from Mariner's Bank for falsely identified the borrower and the source of repayment. The line of credit was actually for Daibes, who funded the repayment, court records show. the other 13 counts were dismissed.
..... McManus, 67, pleaded guilty in September [2024] ti "an information charging him with misprision of a felony, that is, the misapplication of the proceeds of the $1.8 million loan issued by Marien's Bank."
..... He was sentenced the same time as Menendez in Newark to a $15,000 fine and one year of probation.
..... Dabies was found guilty last July [2024] on seven charges of bribery and obtrusion of justice. Prosecutors said he bribed the senator with cash and gold bars to benefit his business dealings with Qatar.
..... Daibes, however, has since field a second new trial request after the office of the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York discovered hat it had again uploaded evidence to the jury that should have been excluded.
..... The prosecution argued during the nine-week trail that envelopes of cash and kilogram bars of gold worth $60,000 each were not just out of "the goodness of their hearts."
..... During his banking indictment, prosecutors said the senator recommended that President Joe Biden nominate a U.S. attorney whom he believed he could influence in Daibes' favor.
..... The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York alleged Menendez was multitasking - by also publicly praising Qatar to entice an Qatari sheik to invest in a property Daibes owns. In exchange, Daibes gave Menendez bribes in the form of cash and gold bars, documents show.
..... The initial indictment made it appear as if Daibes had made payments solely to get Menendez to intervene in a bank fraud case against the developer. Besides making calls to the U.S. attorney, Menendez was sending text messages to the potential Qatari investor on behalf of Daibes at the same time, prosecutors said during the trial.

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