WASHINGTON – Sen. Robert Menendez’s office said Wednesday that he traveled three times on a plane owned by a prominent political donor but that the trips were paid for and reported appropriately. Menendez’s office also said that allegations that he engaged in sex with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic are false.
The FBI searched the office of the donor — eye doctor Salomon Melgen — on Tuesday night and early Wednesday in West Palm Beach, Florida, but it was unclear if the raid was related to Menendez, a Democrat and the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Florida records show an Internal Revenue Service lien against Melgen of more than $11.1 million for unpaid taxes from 2006 through 2009. Prior liens for taxes from 1998 to 2000 were subsequently withdrawn, records show.
The Daily Caller, a conservative website, reported shortly before the November election that Menendez traveled on Melgen’s private plane to the Dominican Republic to engage in sex with prostitutes.
Menendez’s office said that any accusations of engaging with prostitutes “are manufactured by a politically motivated rightwing blog and are false.” Menendez’s office said Melgen has been a friend and political supporter of the senator for many years and that the three trips that Menendez took have been “paid for and reported appropriately.”
If Menendez did not pay for the trips, he would have to report them on annual financial disclosure forms as gifts. If he paid for the trips from his Senate office account, he would have to report them on Senate office forms. And if he used campaign funds, he would have had to report the expense on Federal Election Commission forms. The Associated Press searched six years of office and travel-related expenses for Menendez’s U.S. Senate office and found no reports reflecting payments to Melgen or trips aboard Melgen’s plane.
The Daily Caller began publishing stories on its Internet website about Menendez and Melgen on Nov. 1, when it reported that two women from the Dominican Republic said Menendez paid them for sex earlier in 2012. Prostitution is legal in the Caribbean nation.
Melgen, 58, is a native of the Dominican Republic. He has lived in the U.S. since at least 1980.
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