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Final chapter for NJ corruption saga

Bob Menendez's wife begins prison time

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

..... The "dazzling" Nadine Arslania Menendez, who once wowed her future husband, then-Senator Bob Menendez, at an IHOP, is now behind bars - the final chapter of a story that began three years ago with the indictment of the couple and three New Jersey businessmen.
..... The former senator began his 11-year prison sentence ion June 2025 after the guilty verdict in 16 felony counts in a federal corruption trial.
..... The couple and the businessmen - Wael Hana, Fred Daibes and Jose Uribe - wee charged ad later found guilty of orchestration a bribery scheme. Menendez and his wife were found guilty of receiving among other things, cash, gold bars and a luxury car in exchange for the use of hos political influence.
..... The federal indictment against the group was first unsealed in September 2023 and updated with superseding indictments three times - in October of that year [2023] and in January and March 2024.
..... Specifically, the couple's guilty verdicts were issued for bribery, extortion and obstruction of justice in a multilevel scheme that traded envelopes of cash, gold bars and a new Mercedes for official act that benefited Qatar and Egypt. Menendez, his wife, Daibes and Hana were found guilty. Uribe, who was the start witness and testified against the others, was DECnet sentenced to no jail time after pleading guilty and cooperating with the government.
..... The former senator was sentenced to 11 years in prison, Hana more than eight years and Daibes seven years. Daibes was fined $1.75 million; Hana was fined $1.3 million. all three are appealing their cases. all three are in prison serving their sentences and field appeals in February. [2026]
..... Menendez's sentence will go to 2034 at the prison on Route 15 in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. Hana is expected to be released in 2031 and Daibes in 2030. Both are serving their time at the prison on Fairton-Millvile Road in Farton, New Jersey.
..... Arslanian Menendez was the last to report to jail, entering on July 10 [2026] after several attempts to postpone her surrender date until she could have another surgery related to breast cancer.
..... She is now serving her 54-month sentence in a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, and also has appealed her conviction.

'Partners in crime'

..... During their separate trials, the pair pointed fingers at each other. Menendez's attorney said the gold bars were found in Arslanian Menendez's closet, and she said during her sentencing that she had felt like a puppet.
..... During the trial, prosecutors referred to the couple as "partners in crime" who put his "power up for sale" while she demanded and collected payments.
..... "The defendant and her partner in crime, former senator Robert Menendez, engaged in the most brazen form of public corruption - gold bars, cash, and a luxury care in exchange for a senator's power," U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said last year [2025] in a statement after Nadine Menendez was sentenced. "Today's sentence sends an important message: our elected officials are not for sale."
..... Before they were trading envelopes of cash and gold bars for favors, the pair started dating in February 2018 and married in October 2020.
..... They met at the IHOP restaurant in Union City, which Menenedez was known to frequent. He later made a grand proposal by serrating Arslanian Menendez with a song from the movie "the Greatest showman" while they visited the Taj Mahal during a trip to India.
..... They walked into federal court in Manhattan hand in hand and pleaded not guilty after they were initially indicted in 2023.

2018 crash killed Richard Koop

..... Uribe, the prosecutor's star witness, testified how he arranged to get Arslnaian Menedez a new Mercedes and made payments for the car as part of a bribe. In 2018, she was driving a Mercedes when she reportedly struck and killed 49-year-old pedestrian Richard Koop as she drove down a Bogota street. It took her vie minutes to call police, recored show.
..... Reports field by the Bogota Police Department and the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office indicate that Arslanian Menendez's phone records were to be subpoenaed as part of he investigation into the crash that killed Koop.
..... Those subpoenas were never issued, nor were the phone recored ever delivered to investigators, NorthJersey.com found after seeking public records of the crash. Months later, it was Menendez who picked up the car from the impound lot.

Arslanian Menendez's past

..... Before and after Arslanian Menendez began dating the former senator, recored show, she was a habitual caller to 911 who frequently alerted police that she believed people were following her or breaking into her home.
..... Since 2010, she has called police at least 18 times, including one stretch that included 10 calls on just a year and a half. In a visit to Englewood Cliffs police headquarters, she said she had been approached by "acquaintances" at a local restaurant who advised her not to go to court for a subpoena she had received. Arslanian Menendez called the Englewood Cliff police headquarters in March 2014 to report that she was being followed while driving in Paramus. In august of that year, she told police she was begin followed while running errands in Hackensack.
..... She was not the only one to call the police on her behalf. Douglas Anton, identifying himself as her boyfriend, called police headquarters for a welfare check on Arslanina in April 2018. He aid at the time hat he had not heard from her in days. Anton is a North Jersey-based criminal attorney, music manager and sports agent.

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