NEWARK, N.J. — A former senior staffer for Robert Menendez was worried that the politician was “degrading” himself by helping his wealthy pal get visas for his foreign girlfriends, it emerged at the senator’s corruption trial Tuesday.
“RM does not need to be calling US ambassadors about stuff like this,” former senior staffer Mark Lopes said in an email to another legislative aide, according to prosecutors.
“For something so small as this it really degrades his reputation,” prosecutors said of the email, which referenced Menendez “trying to help get visas for women from the DR (Dominican Republic) for Sal M.”
Menendez is on trial in Newark federal court on charges that he did favors for Salomon Melgen, a wealthy West Palm Beach eye doctor, in exchange for lavish gifts, including all-expense-paid vacations and $750,000 in campaign contributions.
Favors include Menendez helping his married pal secure visas for three of his foreign girlfriends, prosecutors have said.
On Monday, Lopes testified that that he was instructed to call a US ambassador to the Dominican Republic “asap” on behalf of Melgen’s 22-year-old stunner girlfriend Rosiell Polanco. Melgen, 63, wanted the then 22-year-old wannabe fashion student and her sister to visit him for the Christmas holiday, the staffer testified.
On Tuesday, Lopes testified on cross examination that he didn’t think much of Menendez’s contacting the Ambassador to the Dominican Republic on behalf of Melgen — saying he didn’t even remember having done it a year late, in 2009, when he met Melgen in Valencia, Spain.
That prompted the government to seek to introduce a Nov. 2009 email of Lopes complaining about his boss.
Lopes sent the email to another staffer using his private email account and told the staffer he was purposefully “taking this thread offline and removing RM.”
