A jury found a senior US senator guilty of all 18 counts of corruption Tuesday after gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash were discovered at his house, according to local media.
Robert Menendez, a 70-year-old Democrat from New Jersey, faces charges of extortion, obstruction of justice, and receiving bribes to perform favors for businesspeople with connections to Egypt and Qatar. He will be sentenced later.
Menendez, who announced in June that he will run as an independent in the November election, is a career politician who led the key Senate Foreign Relations Committee until the allegations were brought.
In a raid on his New Jersey residence, FBI officials allegedly discovered about $500,000 in cash, as well as gold bars worth approximately $150,000 and a luxury Mercedes-Benz convertible.
His wife, Nadine Menendez, has also been charged, although she will be tried separately because she is undergoing breast cancer treatment.
Prosecutors claimed Menendez put his position as a leading US senator “up for sale.”