Things to know about the bribery prosecution of ex-Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife, Nadine Menendez

NEW YORK (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez is already in prison. His wife is headed there next.

The onetime political power couple’s criminal prosecution culminated Thursday with a judge sentencing Nadine Menendez to 4½ years behind bars. Her punishment came three months after her husband, a New Jersey Democrat, started his 11-year prison sentence.

The unusual facts of the case — including gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz — and breast cancer surgery that led to Nadine Menendez facing trial a year later than her husband teed up a surprising scenario: The then-senator’s lawyers tried to pin the blame on her. But at her sentencing, Nadine Menendez said Bob Menendez was a manipulative liar who “strung me like a puppet.”

Here’s a look at how their cases have played out:

How did the prosecution evolve?

Federal authorities investigated the senator for several years before a 2022 raid on the couple’s home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, turned up $480,000 in cash, gold bars worth an estimated $150,000 and a Mercedes-Benz convertible that prosecutors said were bribes.

At the time Menendez was chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position he resigned after he, his wife and three New Jersey businessmen were hit with bribery charges in September 2023.

Prosecutors lated added a charge alleging that he conspired with his wife and the businessmen for him to act as an agent of Egypt. As a member of Congress, Menendez was prohibited from being an agent of a foreign government. Authorities said it was the first time the charge was brought against a sitting member of Congress, signaling that U.S. national security was at stake.

It was the second federal case against Menendez after a jury deadlocked in 2017 on corruption charges in New Jersey. Prosecutors did not seek to retry him.

He had held public office continuously since 1986, serving as a state legislator before 13 years in the U.S. House of Representatives. In 2006 then-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine appointed Menendez to the Senate seat he vacated when he became governor.

How did the couple explain the cash and gold bars?

Unusual upbringings and family traditions. Neither testified at trial, but both asserted through their lawyers that there were innocent explanations for the loot.

Bob Menendez’s lawyers said stashing tens of thousands of dollars in cash in the home — including inside jackets and boots — stemmed from lessons learned by his family when it lost its life savings except for cash hidden in their home when they left Cuba.

They said he emerged from poverty and the trauma of his father’s suicide when he was 23 to become “the epitome of the American Dream,” rising from mayor of Union City, New Jersey, to serve decades in Congress. By his January sentencing, his lawyer said he had become a joke known by some as “Gold Bar Bob.”

Nadine Menendez’s lawyers said her family had a tradition of keeping gold bars in their homes that were gifts after fleeing war-torn Lebanon when she was a child. They said she treasured jewelry and other objects not for their monetary value but because of their connections to relatives.

What happened to the businessmen?

Jose Uribe was accused of giving Nadine Menendez the Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Bob Menendez pressuring the New Jersey attorney general’s office to stop investigating some of Uribe’s associates. He pleaded guilty, testified against the others and is set to be sentenced Oct. 9.

Wael Hana, a longtime friend of Nadine Menendez, and Fred Daibes, a prominent real estate developer, were tried alongside Bob Menendez and convicted of bribery and other charges. Hana was sentenced to eight years in prison, and Daibes got seven years.

Among other things, Hana was accused of providing cash to Nadine Menendez to save her Englewood Cliffs home after she missed nearly $20,000 in mortgage payments. In return, they said, Bob Menendez began helping Hana preserve a business monopoly he had arranged with the Egyptian government to certify that imported meat met religious requirements.

Daibes paid bribes — including cash and gold — in exchange for Bob Menendez attempting to persuade a federal prosecutor to go easy on him in a bank fraud case, prosecutors said. Menendez also helped him secure a $95 million investment from a Qatari investment fund, prosecutors said.

What about the finger-pointing between the couple?

The alleged crimes, spanning from 2018 until charges were revealed in 2023, began almost as soon as the woman then known as Nadine Arslanian began dating the senator in 2018. They were married in 2020.

Nadine Menendez remained publicly silent as her husband’s lawyers heaped much of the blame for the alleged crimes on her during his trial, alleging that she instigated and carried out many of the crucial bribery-related acts as her husband went about his senatorial duties.

They said her desperate financial situation led her to seek help from relatives and friends and keep quiet about cash and gold in her closet.

At her sentencing Thursday, Nadine Menendez told the judge that her husband’s lawyers filled her in before that trial on their strategy to blame on her. Their reasoning, she said, was that if he was acquitted, her case would go away because she was not a politician.

Judge Sidney Stein agreed that she was wrongly maligned at the earlier trial, telling her, “You are not the person they tried to depict.”

In a presentencing letter to the judge, Bob Menendez also said his wife was unfairly blamed and she was “not the person who Prosecutors, or for that fact, what the Defense Attorneys made her out to be.”

Nadine Menendez does not have to report to prison until next summer. She asked the judge to make sure she can visit her husband in the meantime.

As she left court Thursday, she was asked if she wants a divorce. She said no.