Former New Jersey insurance agent Jose Uribe will not go to prison for his role in the bribery scheme involving former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, the senator’s wife, and two other businessmen.
U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein in New York sentenced the prosecution’s star witness to home confinement for six months and three years of probation after government prosecutors asked the court to consider that Uribe was a “model cooperator” in the case.
Uribe will also pay restitution of $866,947 to the Internal Revenue Service and forfeit $292,000 he gained from his crimes.
The sentencing was in line with recommendations from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Uribe’s own lawyers that he deserved credit for his extensive cooperation with DOJ prosecutors, providing critical evidence, and his testimony that led to the convictions of the senator and his wife Nadine and two other businessmen, Wael Hana and Fred Daibes.
Uribe pleaded guilty to seven charges including conspiracy to commit bribery and extortion, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice related to insurance fraud investigations, and tax evasion related to several businesses he controlled.
Insurance Agent Pleads Guilty, Will Testify in Bribery Case Against Senator Menendez
Uribe admitted trying to influence Senator Menendez by paying for a Mercedes Benz convertible for Nadine so that the senator would try to influence officials to end investigations into a trucking business associate and an insurance agency employee suspected of involvement in insurance fraud.
Witness Testifies on Seeking Sen. Menendez’s Help on Insurance, Trucking Probes
Menendez was found guilty of bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent of Egypt. Nadine Menendez was convicted of working with the senator to accept bribes of gold bars, cash and the luxury car in exchange for the senator’s help with the businessmen’s regulatory and legal problems.
Bob Menendez was sentenced to 11 years and his wife to four and one-half years in prison. Hana and Daibes were sentenced to eight and seven years, respectively.
DOJ called the charges against Menendez as “among the most serious, if not the most serious, charges of which a U.S. Senator has ever been convicted in the history of the United States.”
According to DOJ, to his credit, Uribe met with the government prosecutors 36 times—always in person and typically for multiple hours at a time—and “he was consistently thorough and helpful.”
In its sentencing letter, DOJ wrote, “Although Uribe himself played a significant role in this criminal conduct, his acceptance of responsibility and his cooperation during the prosecution of this matter has been exceptional in every respect and the Court should accord his assistance significant weight in imposing sentence.”
Uribe’s own lawyers pointed out that the government observed that Uribe’s testimony was “devastating evidence of Menendez’s culpability for the scheme,” and the evidence was “overwhelmingly corroborated” by text messages, phone records, financial records and other evidence.
Insurance Broker Witness at Menendez Bribery Trial Faced Tough Cross-Examination
Uribe’s lawyers also asked the court to consider that Uribe cooperated even though he feared for himself and his family in a case against a man who “stood at the apex” of the political system and at a time of rising political violence. Uribe realized that if “someone had wanted to silence him through violence, he was vulnerable.” According to Uribe’s sentencing memorandum, his wife was intimidated and harassed by two men claiming to be law enforcement officers one day when she went to the bank.
This was not Uribe’s only brush with the law. In December 2011, when he owned Inter America Insurance Agency, he was sentenced to three years of probation by a New Jersey judge after admitting to taking insurance premiums from seven clients and remitting the monies to insurance carriers to secure commercial automobile insurance. The New Jersey Department of Insurance revoked the insurance licenses of Uribe and his agency and ordered him to pay $92,500 in fines.
Topics Agencies
Was this article valuable?
Here are more articles you may enjoy.
Florida Reforms Are Truly Making a Difference, Gallagher Re Report Finds 
Tokio Marine Weighs More Than $10 Billion of International M&A 
With Capital Aplenty and Power of AI, Commercial Lines Promises Opportunity: Willis 
US Tariffs on Heavy Truck Imports to Begin Nov. 1, Says Trump 
