Menendez lawyers urge Second Circuit to toss corruption convictions; panel issues no ruling

NEW YORK — A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Thursday heard arguments by lawyers for former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez seeking to vacate his federal bribery and corruption convictions and 11-year prison sentence. The court issued no ruling from the bench and took the case under advisement, Gothamist reported.

Menendez, a longtime Hudson County Democrat who rose from Union City mayor to the U.S. Senate, was not in the Manhattan courtroom. He is serving his sentence at a federal prison in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. His counsel, former U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, led the defense presentation.

The panel — Judges Beth Robinson, Dennis Jacobs, and Barrington Parker — heard arguments covering Menendez and co-defendants convicted with him, as well as a related appeal by his wife, Nadine Menendez. Day-of coverage said the judges “appeared open” to the defense’s central theory under the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause.

What the Speech or Debate Clause fight is about

The Speech or Debate Clause (Article I, Section 6) generally shields members of Congress from being questioned in court about core legislative acts — floor speeches, committee work, and certain advice-and-consent duties. Menendez’s lawyers argue prosecutors put protected legislative activity at the center of the case and that the taint reaches the convictions.

A flashpoint Thursday was Menendez’s handling of the nomination of Philip Sellinger as U.S. attorney for New Jersey. Prosecutors told the jury Menendez withheld support until he believed Sellinger might help Edgewater developer Fred Daibes in a separate matter. Francisco argued that deciding whether to back a U.S. attorney nominee is classic advice-and-consent work — a senator’s duty to advise the president — and should be off-limits as trial evidence.

Daibes’s counsel, former Solicitor General Paul Clement, said protections for advising the president are not limited to hearings and floor speeches and should extend to co-defendants wrapped up in the same actions, per Gothamist. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Monteleoni replied that a senator cannot invent immunity around charged conduct. “You can’t just purport an immunity,” he said.

Official acts, venue, and other appeal issues

Francisco also argued the government failed to prove an “official act” under McDonnell v. United States, citing a 2019 meeting with then–New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal about a trucking investigation. Grewal testified he did not contact investigators after hearing Menendez out.

Judge Robinson sounded skeptical of the defense framing, not of the conviction itself. The official-act standard Francisco urged “seems like a higher bar than the Supreme Court set,” she said, Gothamist reported. Defense lawyers also challenged Southern District of New York venue and laptop materials that entered jury deliberations by accident. Monteleoni said venue was proper because cash deposits and gold sales tied to the alleged bribery occurred there.

The gold-bar case the jury believed

A Manhattan federal jury on July 16, 2024, convicted Menendez on all counts tried — widely reported as 16 counts spanning bribery, honest-services and wire fraud, extortion, conspiracy, acting as a foreign agent of Egypt, and obstruction. Prosecutors said Menendez, while chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, traded official influence for cash, gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz, mortgage help, and other gifts from New Jersey businessmen, and secretly aided Egypt.

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein sentenced him on Jan. 29, 2025, to 11 years. Stein said Menendez had become “a corrupt politician” and that the verdict rested on substantial, overwhelming evidence. Menendez resigned from the Senate in August 2024; he has maintained his innocence. Gold bars and cash recovered from the couple’s home became the case’s iconic image; the foreign-agent count made him the first sitting U.S. senator convicted on that theory, contemporaneous coverage said.

Co-defendants and Nadine Menendez

Argued the same day were appeals by Egyptian-American businessman Wael Hana, sentenced to 97 months (about eight years and one month), and Edgewater developer Fred Daibes, sentenced to seven years (84 months) plus a $1.75 million fine. Both are imprisoned in South Jersey. (Some day-of accounts swapped those terms; sentencing coverage and court orders put Hana at 97 months and Daibes at seven years.)

Nadine Menendez was tried separately, convicted April 21, 2025, and sentenced Sept. 11, 2025, to 54 months (4½ years). She is imprisoned in Danbury, Connecticut. Her appeal — including a Sixth Amendment claim that she was forced to drop preferred counsel David Schertler after prosecutors kept him on a witness list — was argued Thursday. Monteleoni said she could have kept that lawyer via stipulation and that “the defendant received a fair trial.”

Hudson roots, statewide stakes

Menendez’s base was built in Hudson County: Union City mayor in the 1980s and early 1990s, then the Legislature, House, and Senate from 2006 to 2024. The New Jersey footprint — Daibes in Edgewater and alleged pressure around law-enforcement posts — is why the appeal remains closely watched at home even though the trial was in Manhattan.

Overturning the convictions would be a major reversal of one of New Jersey’s most significant recent public-corruption verdicts. Nothing was decided Thursday. The Second Circuit typically issues written opinions weeks or months after argument. Until then, the convictions and sentences stand.

Reporting draws on day-of coverage by Gothamist (Michael Sol Warren), Courthouse News sentencing coverage, and the Second Circuit / SDNY public record. Featured image: official U.S. Senate Photographic Studio portrait (public domain).