Police: women paid to make up claims against Menendez
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Police: women paid to make up claims against Menendez
WASHINGTON – Just as one set of allegations against New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez gains added attention, another continues to fall apart.
A police spokesman in the Dominican Republic said Monday that three women were paid to falsely claim they had sex for money with Menendez, the Associated Press reported. Two women got $425 to make the claims on video and one got $300, according to the report.
"The evidence released today by Dominican law enforcement authorities proves what we have said all along: that the smear campaign against Senator Menendez is based on lies, lies we now know were paid for by interests whose identities have not yet been fully disclosed. These lies were peddled to reporters by Republican operatives, as ABC has reported, and also sent to the FBI by parties yet unknown. Making such intentionally false reports to a federal law enforcement agency is a criminal offense, and we hope the proper U.S. authorities will investigate this matter, as their Dominican counterparts are already doing," Menendez spokeswoman Tricia Enright said in an e-mail.
The news puts yet another tear in the long-fraying allegations that Menendez, a Democrat, traveled to the Dominican for trysts with prostitutes. The accusation first surfaced last year, and was promoted by the conservative Web site the Daily Caller. It was based almost entirely on one shadowy e-mailer, who no one has ever met, and video with two prostitutes making accusations.
The police statement comes two weeks after the Washington Post reported that one of the women had said she was paid to make up a story about Menendez paying for sex.
But as the salacious allegations lose traction, federal officials are looking into other actions involving Menendez and his relationship with friend and donor Salomon Melgen, an eye doctor.
A Florida grand jury is examining their ties, and Menendez’s advocacy on Melgen’s behalf, the Washington Post reported last week. Separately, justice department prosecutors in Washington are reviewing whether Menendez improperly interceded to help Melgen in a healthcare fraud investigation and tried to hide his trips on Melgen’s plane, the Lost Angeles Time reported. Those questions are being examined by Justice’s Public Integrity Section.
"We welcome any review because Sen. Menendez’s actions have always been appropriate, and we believe the facts will confirm that," the senator's office wrote in a statement late last week.
Melgen is a major campaign donor to Menendez and other Democrats and provided the senator three trips to the Dominican on his private plane. Menendez did not repay the $58,500 cost for two of the trips for more than two years. He has also advocated on Melgen’s behalf in the doctor’s dispute with federal officials over Medicare billing and pressed for the U.S. government to help Melgen in a business dispute involving port screening in the Dominican.
Questions about those actions remain even as the prostitution story loses credibility.
Over the weekend, the Star-Ledger, New Jersey's largest newspaper, published an editorial calling for Menendez to give up his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee until the investigations are complete.
Right- and the police in the DR were not paid to claim the women were paid......nah, that would never happen to cops making $500.00 a month...— Manny Trillo- Aah, once again the sub-60 IQ conservatives have embarrassed themselves, first by making up a salacious story, then bribing people to commit perjury and file false police reports, and then spreading it around (Daily Caller) without verifying it. If your intent was to harm Senator Menendez, you've done just the opposite: You've given him the solid defense of baseless, scurrilous slander with regard to other investigation. Nothing pleases and helps the Liberals and Progressives more than the malice and stupidity of the religious/social/wing nut Right. Thanks, all of you. Couldn't have done it without you!— joel robbins
- Any guesses as to whom it was that paid these women to lie about a Democratic politician????
Honestly, the Dems should be ashamed for losing any election to this klan of lying idiots. If it wasn't for owning the media, a total lack of honor in campaigning, a gullible public who too-often buys into the bigotry and greed promoted by the GOP, and the extreme gerrymandering of voting districts (and other illegal tactics), the rethugs would not even have a dogcatcher in their ranks.— JeffJenk -1.jpg)
She was paid to say that
dominican police are usually very reliable- The ol'payolla scandal....via Ozzie Myers, money talks and BS walks.— STEPHEN1988
- Police: women paid to SAY they made up claims against Menendez should be the actual headline.— STEPHEN1988
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Yes, the Domincan police would never take a bribe to lie. Never.— Keep The Change - Strange that the anonymous e-mailer has remained anonymous.— agreed
- So this 'writer' has cleared the Senator because the DR police have told him otherwise. LOL. Two things: Maybe Comrade Timari should wait for the FBI to decide. Maybe he should reflect on his double standards....where is the article about all the lying from the Justice Dept? Benghazi, Black Panther investigation...etc, etc.— keapitreal
- That picture of him is from one of the girls who he paid to shower him in gold. He is a patient man, waiting, waiting...LOL— ricciaje
- I was arguing with a neanderthal about this last week. Instead of believing the reporters of the Washington Post and ABC investigative team he decided to take the Daily Callers rumor as fact. Menendez still needs to go, in my opinion but it has nothing to do with this story.
Hey keepitreal, you have no "point" other than to lash out at the president with any spittle you can work up in your peanut-sized cranium.— wokmaster - repubes relying on their main platform plank--the lie.
what do they offer besides hatred and lies? no wonder they last— the lopez! - Democratic sex scandals are so rare I'm surprised anyone believed this in the first place...— tpizza
- Seems to me that the women were paid to say that they were paid to say that they were paid to say they had sex with Menendez!! The Senator is scum and should resign, but he won't, in fact the silly libby's in NJ will re-elect him, LOL. I can only laugh anymore.— Crazybrave1
Jonathan Tamari is the Inquirer’s correspondent in Washington, where he follows the Philadelphia area’s interests and representatives. Tamari comes to D.C. after two years as a beat writer reporting on the Philadelphia Eagles and the NFL (where, a political source once told him, there are at least rules against hitting below the knees). He previously wrote about politics and government from Trenton, reporting on the characters and color of New Jersey state government.Jersey born and bred, Tamari now lives in the capital city, where he is looking for stories, places to run, soccer bars and good meals.
Reach him at jtamari@phillynews.com.
Follow Jonathan on Twitter: @JonathanTamari.
