Three women who said in taped interviews last year that they were paid to have sex with Sen. Robert Menendez now have told authorities that they received money to make the claims and do not know the senator, police said on Monday.
A Dominican lawyer, Melanio Figueroa, paid the women $300 to $400 each to record the interviews in October, National Police spokesman Gen. Máximo Báez Aybar said, according to The Miami Herald.
Two of the interviews may have been published by The Daily Caller just before the November elections, The Herald reports.
The women, whose faces were blurred, claimed to have been paid as escorts for sex with a man named “Bob.”
Both Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, and his longtime friend and political benefactor, the Florida eye doctor Salomón Melgen, have denied the accusations, the Herald reports.
Menendez has called the stories “nameless, faceless, anonymous allegations,” according to the newspaper.
Kirk Ogrosky, Melgen’s attorney, said on Monday that the announcement supported his client’s claims.
“The announcement by the Dominican National Police is further evidence corroborating what we have been saying from day one — that the allegations against Dr. Melgen are false and politically motivated,” Ogrosky said in a statement published by the Herald. “Dr. Melgen has acted appropriately at all times, and the individuals behind this campaign of lies should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
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