A professional escort who travels the East Coast seeing clients in cities from Miami to Boston has identified a photo of Sen. Bob Menendez as a man who paid her for sex. The woman, in her late 30s, told The Daily Caller prior to seeing Menendez’s photo that she had been paid to provide sexual favors to several U.S. senators, including a New Jersey Democrat and other politicians who are no longer living.

The escort, who earns money having sex with men in upscale hotel rooms, said during an in-person interview that many of her wealthy and powerful customers use pseudonyms when arranging for her services, and when meeting her in person.

TheDC showed the woman a photo of Menendez, however, and she identified him as a former client. (RELATED: Complete coverage of Sen. Bob Menendez’s scandals)

Most of the client base for elite escorts in Washington is among lobbyists, politicians and other attorneys, she said. About 90 percent are involved with government.

“They’re all attorneys, lobbyists of some sort. They are all — within reason — are lobbyists or attorneys or senators.”

Menendez, she said, is “quite a hobbyist. He sees a lot of girls and doesn’t seem to have the skills to have a relationship.”

“Hobbyists,” she explained, are men who “‘hobby’ in seeing many girls, as many as they can,” referring to escorts who offer companionship and sexual favors in exchange for what they euphemistically call financial “donations.”

The woman granted multiple interviews to The Daily Caller after reading TheDC’s reporting on the fast-evolving Menendez saga. TheDC did not pay for her story, and is withholding her identity, referring to her only as “Beth” — which is not her real name.

She has serviced “tons of customers that are politicians,” she said, adding that when she is in Washington, D.C., “the majority of my customers are lobbyists.”

Tricia Enright, a spokeswoman for Sen. Menendez, responded to a phone message Friday with a one-line email saying she was “curious what you’re writing.” But she did not respond to a request for a statement about whether Menendez has ever paid women for sex, either in the Dominican Republic or in the United States.

TheDC offered on Friday to share the contents of this article with Enright on Sunday afternoon, provided that she would send a response from the senator on Sunday evening. She did not respond to that offer.

But Beth told TheDC that Menendez has been well-known among high-priced call girls since at least 2008.

Referring to allegations that Menendez had sex with prostitutes in the Dominican Republic who were as young as 16, she said it was “uncomfortable to think that a hobbyist would take that road that he took, knowing he could have all the sex he wants” with women over the age of 18. (RELATED: Dominican prostitute says Menendez “likes the youngest and newest girls”)

“You know, it’s uncomfortable to think that one of our guys, that’s a hobbying guy, would lower himself to the level of what he did,” Beth said.

“I really hurt that kids go through this stuff,” she wrote in an email.



Beth also discussed Svitlana Buchyk, a Ukranian model whom she described as a fellow escort. Buchyk, she said, counts among her clients both Menendez and Dr. Salomon Melgen, a South Florida ophthalmologist who has been a major donor to Menendez’s campaigns.

Beth said she has never met Melgen herself. But TheDC sent her an Internet link to Buchyk’s website, and she confirmed that she is the same woman who has been servicing both men. (RELATED SLIDESHOW: Meet one of Bob Menendez’s alleged call girls)

“Obviously, she’s moved up the ladder, which is great,” Beth said. “And more power to her. You know, she has things, she’s doing her business, and I’m sorry she got caught up with a guy that may be a schmuck.”

Asked whether she was referring to Menendez or Melgen, she replied, “Both! Are you kidding? Although I hope they gave her a lot of financial backing.”

Court records obtained by the Palm Beach Post show that Melgen leased an oceanfront Florida condominium in 2009 for Buchyk to live in. She was forced out after less than a year, amid a contract dispute centered on Buchyk’s lengthy stay as a “visitor” in a condo unit that she didn’t legally own. (RELATED: Court documents: Menendez donor leased oceanfront condo for alleged prostitute)

Beth added that Buchyk’s responsibilities to Melgen have included procuring young women in the Dominican Republic whom he and his friends — including Menendez — can pay for sex.

“There’s so many brothels there,” Beth told TheDC. “Women are nothing. They’re [treated like] trash there, at any age. They have no meaning, no reason for being. So she [Buchyk] would OK it, because that’s her job.”

Asked if “OK it” referred to bringing girls to Melgen and Menendez, she replied, “Absolutely. She has no morals, but those girls are easy [to find]. They’re [treated like] trash. You use them and abuse them and they’re gone.”

Melgen has ferried Menendez to his home in a luxurious Dominican Republic resort on his private jet, on at least three occasions.

The senator often shared Melgen’s plane with Buchyk, according to Beth.

It’s common knowledge among elite call girls she knows in Florida that Buchyk was on Melgen’s plane “a lot,” she agreed.

They “were together an awful lot on the plane,” she added, while noting that she wasn’t present herself during any of the trips.

“I would like to be in her shoes, within reason,” Beth added, acknowledging that Buchyk lives a high-society life of luxury thanks to her wealthy clients. “But I really wouldn’t want to associate with those guys. Those two guys are not anybody I would want to have in my life.”

Buchyk was also named in a lengthy dossier on Menendez that appeared online in late January, compiled by a person calling himself “Peter Williams.”

TheDC was first to report on its contents, which included statements from two women who said their sexual contact with Menendez began when they were 16 years old. (RELATED: Handwritten account recalls sex with Menendez ‘when I was 16 years old’)

While the collection of emails and other documents contained unconfirmed allegations, Beth’s statements reinforce and corroborate its contents.

TheDC earlier obtained videotaped statements from two Dominican prostitutes who said Menendez was among their customers around the Easter weekend in 2012. As with Beth, TheDC withheld their identities. Neither of them, however, is among the women described in the Peter Williams documents.

Reacting to a claim in that dossier that Buchyk “has traveled with them [Melgen and Menendez] in the jet, sailed with them in the yacht, and has repeatedly visited the Doctor’s house,” Beth confirmed that account in an email to TheDC.

She also said Buchyk was “very involved” with “bad Russians” in New York City who traffic drugs, weapons and girls through Caribbean ports to the United States.

Melgen owns a company that is attempting to force the Dominican Republic to honor an exclusive contract for X-ray equipment to inspect shipping containers in the nation’s busy seaports. Traffickers in illicit goods and human cargo, Beth speculated, would go to any length to keep the Dominican Ports unprotected.

She said Buchyk may have “unwittingly” fed information to her Russian associates, who then exposed Menendez and Melgen through the “Peter Williams” documents.

“I think she got some information, and one thing led to another and it got out of control,” she said of Buchyk.

Melgen did not respond to repeated phone messages from TheDC seeking comment for this story. His attorney, the Palm Beach Gardens-based Lawrence Duffy, did not immediately respond to an email requesting a statement.

Buchyk is represented by Miami attorney Jerry Greenberg. While he emailed a statement less than an hour after TheDC gave him a verbal outline of this article, he declined to obtain a response from Buchyk herself.

“The allegations are outrageous lies,” Greenberg wrote. “Ms. Buchyk is an actress and model attending to her career. The suggestion that she played any role in improper conduct involving Senator Menendez or anyone else is defamatory nonsense.”

Greenberg did not reply to a question about why an attorney, and not a publicist or PR firm, is representing Buchyk.

Call girls who service men in such positions of power typically charge between $350 and $1,000 per hour. They advertise their services online or work with established “bookers” who act as modern madams, scheduling the women’s strictly regulated time with “hobbyists” who are eager to pay for sex.

The sessions often feature a “girlfriend experience,” including the illusion of closeness and companionship for men without wives or steady girlfriends, in addition to sex.

Many of the men later post detailed reviews of their experiences on specialized websites, using aliases. Those reviews serve as bona fides so they can secure future “dates” with more escorts.

The women have their own websites, too, where they trade information about the men and decide who is — and isn’t — safe to be with. TheDC has examined Beth’s history on two of these websites, and confirmed that she has been a working escort with a consistent male following for more than a decade.

There is no indication that Sen. Menendez has frequented these websites, but Beth said it would be unusual for a man to have sex with multiple escorts unless he was well-known by a pseudonym online in order to establish credibility with the women.

Given his position of power and influence, Menendez is “somewhat reckless,” she said. (RELATED VIDEO: Menendez said Secret Service agents who solicited prostitutes “should all be fired”)

According to a November 2012 report published by Gawker, a Washington, D.C. resident who lives directly below Menendez’s apartment described nightly sex romps upstairs that regularly continued until the wee hours of the morning.

“They’d usually arrive together in the late evening,” the neighbor told Gawker. “We’d hear him put some jazz on. Maybe around 11 p.m., the noise would start. He had a very squeaky mattress and a very squeaky bed frame. We’d hear moaning, and we could hear them switching positions because different parts of the bed would squeak. It was awful.”

Gawker reported that the women would leave Menendez’s apartment and get into taxicabs at 3 a.m. “without fail.”

“My wife would be up because of the noise, and she’d watch them out the window,” the man said. “They were always in like four-inch heels, and it was definitely a different one every time. Different women on back-to-back nights. These were very young, very attractive women.”

Through his stable of more than a half-dozen companies, Melgen has owned two different aircraft since 2003. TheDC has obtained detailed flight records for both private planes. (RELATED: As Menendez inquiry broadens, jet-setting donor covers his tracks)

Combined, records show that the jets have landed more than 200 times in the Dominican Republic. They have also taken off at least 39 times from Teterboro airport in northern New Jersey, less than 25 miles from Union City — Menendez’s home town.

According to those records, the two private jets have also made at least 29 stops at Washington Dulles International Airport, near the nation’s capital.

Menendez has acknowledged being aboard only one of those aircraft, and only three times, all in 2010. In January he reimbursed Melgen $58,500 from his personal funds to cover the cost of two of those trips, nearly three years after they occurred.

The overall taint of scandal has harmed Menendez’s approval ratings in New Jersey. A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday showed that 44 percent of Garden State voters believe their junior senator is not honest and trustworthy. (RELATED: Poll shows Menendez takes big hit in NJ)

His overall job approval rating now sits at 36 percent, a drop of 15 percentage points in less than a month.

Conchita Sarnoff is an American writer publishing her first book on child sex trafficking in America in the fall of 2013. David Martosko is The Daily Caller’s executive editor. Follow Conchita and follow David on Twitter.