A Superior Court judge has approved a request by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office to bar disgraced former Senator Bob Menendez from future public office or government employment in New Jersey, which also clears the way for Menendez’s state pension to be revoked.
In May, Attorney General Matt Platkin requested that, in light of Menendez’s conviction on federal bribery charges (he recently began serving a 11-year prison sentence), he should be “permanently disqualified from holding any office or position of honor, trust, or profit, under this state or any of its administrative or political subdivisions.”
Superior Court Judge Robert Lougy, in a brief court order filed today, granted the request, saying that he saw no reason for the case to involve a hearing. (Menendez never even contested the state’s motion.) If the conviction against Menendez is overturned on appeal, or if he’s pardoned by the president, he would have the ability to move to vacate Lougy’s order.
It seems unlikely the 71-year-old ex-senator would have been offered a government job upon his release from prison regardless, but the order also triggers a review by the Public Employees’ Retirement System over whether Menendez will be able to keep his state pension. Menendez currently draws $1,066 a month thanks to his service in state and local office in the 1980s and 1990s.
Menendez’s federal pension, however, is a different matter. Federal law prevents members of Congress convicted of corruption-related crimes from receiving their congressional pensions, but when Menendez was convicted the law still included a loophole allowing him to exhaust the appeals process before his pension would be revoked; that loophole has since been closed, but only for convictions that have been issued since the beginning of this year, so Menendez is still likely receiving his pension.