Former U.S. senator Bob Menendez gets 11-year prison sentence for bribery – National [Video]

Former U.S. senator Bob Menendez was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for accepting bribes of gold and cash and acting as an agent of Egypt — crimes his own lawyer said earned him the nickname “Gold Bar Bob.”

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein announced the sentence after the Democrat tearfully addressed the judge, saying he’d lost everything he cared about, except for his family.

“You were successful, powerful, you stood at the apex of our political system,” the judge said. ”Somewhere along the way, and I don’t know when it was, you lost your way and working for the public good became working for your good.”

Menendez’s actions, the judge said, feeds the cynicism of voters.

“What’s been the result?” he said, noting a lengthy investigation of a five-year crime. “You lost your senate seat. You lost your chairmanship and you lost your good name.”

Menendez, 71, who tearfully told the judge …