Rep. Robert Menendez has been at the center of the accusations. Police: Menendez accusers paid to lie

Three women who alleged they were paid to have sex with Robert Menendez were paid to make those false claims, law enforcement authorities in the Dominican Republic said Monday - prompting the New Jersey Democrat to call the entire incident “a smear from the very beginning.”

“We believe that it continues to show that this was a smear from the very beginning,” Menendez told reporters in the Capitol. He added that federal prosecutors should look into those peddling what he called “smears.”


According to a report by the Associated Press on Monday, a spokesman for police in the Dominican Republican said that three women were paid by a Dominican attorney to “falsely claim in videotaped interviews” that they were paid to have sex with Menendez. One of the women received about $300; the other two took in about $425, the report said.

Authorities are looking to investigate the attorney in question, the report said, and haven’t yet determined a possible motive or whether the buck stopped with him, the report continued.

“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,” said Tricia Enright, a representative for Menendez, in an email to POLITICO.

“These lies were peddled to reporters by Republican operatives, as ABC has reported, and also sent to the FBI by parties yet unknown,” she continued. “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.”

Last fall, the conservative outlet The Daily Caller reported that “[t]wo women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year,” and posted accompanying video. The Washington Post later reported that a woman who had made claims that she was paid to have sex with the lawmaker recanted her story. The Daily Caller has said that woman wasn’t one of the two women it had interviewed.

The AP reported Monday that “The women’s videotaped statements were published on a conservative U.S. website.”

The Daily Caller ran a story later on Monday summing up the events, drawing in part from the AP report and also noting that “TheDC has not independently verified the identities of the women involved in the Dominican National Police investigation, but will continue to investigate the case.”

The Washington Post also reported last week that Menendez is under investigation by a Miami-based federal grand jury that is “examining his role in advocating for the business interests” of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a friend and donor. The Post also has reported that an FBI probe has so far found no evidence that Menendez solicited prostitutes. Menendez and Melgen have long denied the allegations.

“I don’t know anything other than what I read,” Menendez told reporters regarding the grand jury.

“Dr. Melgen is hopeful that the appropriate authorities will identify and prosecute the people who are responsible,” Melgen’s attorney said in a statement sent to POLITICO earlier this month. “As he has maintained from day one, Dr. Melgen has been cooperating with authorities in every way possible and he denies any wrongdoing.”

Manu Raju contributed to this report.