Former Senator Bob Menendez turned himself in on Tuesday at a federal prison in Pennsylvania to start serving an 11-year sentence for bribery charges.

Menendez's attorney referred to the punishment as a 'life and death sentence' due to his age. The former senator had sought a pardon or commutation from both former President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, but his efforts were unsuccessful.

Menendez, a Democrat who was once the senior senator from New Jersey and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was convicted in July for his involvement in a bribery scheme. This scheme resulted in him and his wife, Nadine Menendez, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars and cash.

Prosecutors claimed that Menendez accepted bribes from New Jersey businessmen in exchange for taking actions that would benefit them and the governments of Egypt and Qatar. The bribes included gold bars, a Mercedes-Benz for Nadine Menendez, and over $480,000 in cash found by the FBI during a search of their New Jersey home in 2022.

Menendez was found guilty of extortion, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and acting as a foreign agent. His wife, Nadine Menendez, was also convicted in a separate trial and is set to be sentenced in September after undergoing cancer treatments.

Despite his appeals, Menendez was denied the opportunity to remain free while he appeals his conviction by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Efforts by Menendez's allies to secure a pardon or commutation from Trump have been unsuccessful, as the former president has pardoned individuals who supported him in public corruption cases.

Menendez, who was a vocal critic of Trump during his presidency, will serve his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, Schuylkill, a medium-security prison with a minimum-security camp.