Former U.S. Sen. 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 lawyer said he’s been mocked for as “Gold Bar Bob.”

U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein delivered the sentence after the Democrat tearfully addressed the court. He said he’d lost everything he cared about, except his family. Menendez resigned last year after becoming one of only a handful of U.S. senators ever to be convicted while in office.

“You were successful, powerful, you stood at the apex of our political system,” Stein told Menendez in a packed Manhattan courtroom. ”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.”

The ex-senator was convicted of selling his once-considerable clout for bribes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. His actions, the judge said, feed the cynicism of voters.