Residents of Union City struggled to beat the 100-degree heat on Tuesday afternoon. And across the Hudson River in a Manhattan courtroom, U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, the city’s former mayor, failed to beat the rap.

On the day Menendez was convicted on all 16 charges in his federal corruption trial, residents of this densely populated Hudson County town made it clear: He got what he deserved.

Jose Ovalles is a bodega worker who was walking down Bergenline Avenue in front of Cuban restaurant El Artesano soon after the jury in Menendez’s case announced its guilty verdict. Ovalles said the senator has lost the trust of his constituents.

“People around here don’t believe in him no more. And why not? Because of what he did,” he said. “There was all this love for him, and now it’s gone.”

The claims at the center of the Menendez case involved “shocking levels of corruption,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, told reporters Tuesday. Prosecutors said Menendez accepted gold bars, cash, and other items as bribes from three businessmen and, in return, did favors for Egypt and Qatar and interfered in two criminal cases to help friends and associates.

The two men he was tried alongside, Fred Daibes and Wael Hana, were also convicted on all counts.

Menendez’s road to becoming a convicted felon deviates far from his promising start. The son of Cuban immigrants, Menendez was elected to Union City’s school board at the age of 20 and soon became an aide to the city’s then-mayor, William Musto. Musto was a father figure and mentor to Menendez until Menendez testified for prosecutors at Musto’s 1982 racketeering trial.

After Musto was convicted and sent to prison, Menendez rose. He became Union City’s mayor in 1986 and was later elected to the state Assembly and state Senate. Voters sent him to D.C. in 1992 to represent parts of Hudson County in the House, and in 2006, he became a U.S. senator.

Even as his stature grew and he moved to other parts of the state, Menendez remained a commanding presence in Union City. But on Tuesday, residents here seemed to be shaking the senator off like a bad habit.

“Menendez kept saying, ‘They’re coming after me because I’m Latino.’ No, it was him,” said Kimberly Perez, 17, a Union City student. “He shouldn’t have done what he was doing in the first place. He better pay for what he did, and in return, maybe he’ll start doing the right thing and get forgiveness.”

Outside La Rica deli and grocery store at the corner of 45th Street and Hudson Avenue, just a block away from the apartment building where Menendez grew up, other residents were less charitable.

“You put these people in power to help you, right? To help do stuff for the state of New Jersey, right? Well, they might do some, but then they do other stuff,” said Omar Roberts, 58, a housekeeper originally from Venezuela. “We have problems with corruption in South America, too. In terms of America’s image to the world, a guy like Menendez got so high up, but then he got caught. That’s a fact, and it’s better for everybody that he got caught.” 

Outside of City Hall, the scene of many of Menendez’s previous triumphs, Deandre Lamar, 49, a tile worker and union member, said the verdict did not surprise him.

“It’s Jersey politics, for sure. It always seems weird how people have all these connections and how much things go down,” Lamar said. “A senator is supposed to serve the people, and you’re taking bribes? This is not right. So, Menendez got away with it for a long time. Until he didn’t.”

If Bob Menendez rejects calls for his resignation, Cory Booker will head up a move to expel him from the United States Senate.

“He must stand up now and leave the Senate. He must do that. And if he refuses to do that, I will lead that effort to make sure that he’s removed from the Senate,” Booker said in an interview on MSNBC last night.  “It is the just thing to do.”

A jury on Tuesday convicted Menendez of sixteen counts of bribery, conspiracy, extortion, obstruction of justice, wire fraud, conspiracy, and acting as a foreign agent.

“This is reprehensible behavior that he’s been convicted of…doing things for foreign governments that should chill a lot of folks for what he’s been convicted of,” Booker said of his New Jersey colleague.  “This is enough. He should step down. He needs to step down right now.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called or Menendez’s resignation – something he had not previously done – but not for his expulsion.

But two Democratic senators facing tough re-election fights this year, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, said they would back a move to expel Menendez from the Senate.  Both had called for his resignation after he was indicted last fall.

“Public service is a sacred trust and Senator Menendez has broken that trust,” Casey said on social media.  “Now that a jury of his peers has found him guilty on all 16 charges, including acting as a foreign agent, Senator Menendez should resign or face expulsion from the Senate.”

The Senate doesn’t take the expulsion route easily; 14 of the 15 senators expelled since 1789 were tossed for backing the confederacy; no senator has been expelled since 1862.

Expulsion required a two-thirds vote.

Another senator from New Jersey was almost expelled in 1982.

Harrison A. Williams, Jr., was convicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges related to the ABSCAM scandal in 1981 and remained in the Senate for more than ten months, resigning just as his colleagues were on the verge of expelling him.

Bill Bradley, the other senator from New Jersey, stood by Williams and refused to call for his resignation following his conviction.

At the end of the fifth day of the Senate expulsion trial, Bradley announced that he would vote to expel Williams.  The loss of Bradley tipped the scales; with a vote near and without the support to avoid being expelled, Williams, for the first time, hinted that resignation was an option. He resigned the following day.

Like Williams, Menendez continued to maintain his innocence, predicting he will be successful in appealing Tuesday’s jury verdict.

“I have never violated my public oath,” Menendez said following his conviction.