(The Hill) -- The wife of ex-Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was sentenced Thursday to more than four years in prison for her role in a scheme to trade her husband's political power for lavish bribes.

Nadine Menendez, 58, was convicted in April of plotting with her husband, the former chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to exchange his clout for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and a Mercedes-Benz.

Prosecutors said last month that she played a “critical role” in the plot, selling his influence not “reluctantly, fleetingly, or on a small scale,” but “eagerly.”

But the 54-month sentence falls short of the seven-year prison term the government asked a judge to impose.

U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein granted leniency in part because of the trial she

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