SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- A young woman named in connection with an alleged sex scandal involving U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez denied in a television interview she was ever involved in prostitution and said she had never met him.

UPDATE:

In first interview, Menendez calls allegations false, says he is being smeared

The 21-year-old, who lives in a village in the south of the Dominican Republic, said: "It's completely false. I don't know that man even from the television.”

Separately, Vinicio Castillo, a Dominican lawyer and cousin of Salomon Melgen — a major campaign donor now at the center of an FBI investigation that has sparked widespread speculation of Menendez’s involvement — charged that Melgen was the target of a “dirty campaign” by drug cartels aimed at discrediting him.

Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat who just assumed the chairmanship of the prestigious Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has come under focus in the past week over his ties to Melgen, a Dominican-born eye doctor who funneled tens of thousands of dollars into Menendez's campaign fund and political committees that supported his re-election.

Menendez called Melgen a long-time friend. Last week he admitted accepting two free trips to the Dominican Republic aboard Melgen’s private jet in 2010 and stayed at his villa at the resort community of Casa de Campo. He said he paid nearly $60,000 last month to reimburse Melgen for the flights.

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The ranking Republican of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Ethics says the matter is now the subject of an inquiry by the committee. A spokesman for Menendez has said repeatedly that the senator has done nothing wrong.

Melgen’s offices in West Palm Beach, Fla., were raided by the FBI last week. While authorities have not disclosed the nature of the investigation, it came in the wake of reports by a conservative website, citing an anonymous tipster, claiming that Melgen had provided Menendez with the services of prostitutes at a private villa in the Dominican Republic. Several women appeared in a video on the website, their faces obscured, alleging they were paid to have sex with Menendez. The woman who has come out publicly today denying her involvement did not appear in the original video.

Since then, reporters for several news organizations in the United States and the Dominican Republic have so far been unable to substantiate whether the women, who were identified by the tipster, even exist. A telephone number for one that was provided by the unknown tipster to news outlets — including The Star-Ledger — turned out to be a non-working number.

The tipster has communicated only through email, but has not responded to repeated requests for an interview either in person or on the telephone.

Univision, the Spanish-language television network based in the United States, said it interviewed one of the women, Yaneisis Fernandez, who had been named by the tipster. She claimed in a televised interview that she was not a prostitute and never met Menendez.

“I don't know any of those men, and they haven't come to my house," she said tearfully.

Her parents, who were also interviewed by Univision and the largest Dominican newspaper, called the allegations absurd. "We don't know how they published a photo of my daughter, who barely leaves her home and has never been to Casa de Campo," said her mother.

Univision said it found two other women identified in the video did not reside at the places that were indicated.

Earlier today, Vinicio Castillo — a lawyer, Melgen's cousin, and the son of a former cabinet minister here — held a press conference calling on Dominican and U.S. law enforcement agencies to investigate who is spreading "lies" about himself, Menendez and Melgen.

Castillo’s name had also been linked in the material provided by the unnamed tipster to news organizations as one of those allegedly consorting with prostitutes.

“It's absolutely false and slanderous to say that I have been on trips or at parties with underage prostitutes with Sen. Robert Menendez and Dr. Salomon Melgen,” he said. “I've known Senator Menendez for more than 15 years as a friend of my cousin, Dr. Salomon Melgen, during vacations the senator has taken in the Dominican Republic. I've always observed from him a faultless and dignified conduct that could never square with the grave and immoral charges that have come anonymously — without a single person giving face to such grave accusations."

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He blamed drug cartels as being behind a campaign to discredit Melgen—an investor in a Caribbean port security company that Menendez allegedly went to bat for last year, urging officials in the U.S. State and Commerce departments to intervene on behalf of the company, which holds a long-stalled contract to install X-ray cargo screening machines in the Dominican Republic.

The contract has been held up by officials year who claim it was a huge political giveaway awarded through a corrupt process.

“It's my conviction that this defamation campaign has come as a consequence of a battle with powerful entities in the Dominican Republic, who roundly oppose X-ray scans of millions of cargo containers entering and leaving the Dominican Republic,” he said.

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