Former Sen. Bob Menendez is 'forever disqualified' from ever holding public office again in NJ

Aliya Schneider, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Dec 5, 2025

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Former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez is permanently banned from holding public office in New Jersey. If he tries to anyway, he could face criminal charges.

Mercer County Superior Court Judge Robert Lougy wrote in an order that Menendez is “forever disqualified from holding any office or position of honor, trust, or profit” of New Jersey state or local government.

If the once-powerful New Jersey Democrat applies for public office or employment, or shows any efforts to campaign or be appointed to political office, he will be subject to a fourth-degree contempt of court charge.

Menendez, 71, was convicted in July 2024 for selling the powers of his office to wealthy benefactors and acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government.

He accepted bribes of gold bars, cash, a Mercedes-Benz, and more from 2018 to 2022 in exchange for using his position to advance the interests of three New Jersey business owners and Egyptian officials.

Prior to his conviction, Menendez floated the idea of running as an independent to maintain his Senate seat as a competitive Democratic primary was underway to replace him.

He ultimately did not run and South Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim, a U.S. House lawmaker at the time, won his former Senate seat.

In January, Menendez was sentenced to 11 years in prison and began serving in June at the Federal Correctional Institution Schuylkill in Minersville, Pennsylvania.

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin’s office announced Lougy’s order on Friday.

“Critical to preserving the public’s faith and trust in government institutions is ensuring that elected officials who commit crimes involving their offices don’t find new opportunities to regain positions of power,” Platkin said in a statement.

The former senator’s wife Nadine Menendez was convicted in April of serving a “critical role” in his scheme. She was sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison and is slated to begin her sentence next summer.

Menendez rose from the Union City school board at age 20 to the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair position over the course of five decades, becoming mayor earlier in his career and later being elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006.

Platkin’s office filed a lawsuit in May requesting Menendez’s lifetime ban on public office in New Jersey. At the time, Platkin’s office pointed to former Paterson Mayor Jose “Joey” Torres, who was convicted of contempt in December 2024 after running for mayor in 2022 in violation of a similar 2017 order not to run. Torres was sentenced to three years of probation through a plea deal along with a $10,000 fine in February of this year.

Platkin said he hopes the order on Menendez “sends a message” that pubic corruption will come with consequences.

“Too many people in New Jersey have a cynical viewpoint that corruption is a routine, widespread feature of our politics,” he added.