Dominican Police Say Women Were Paid to Make Sex Claims About Menendez

Allegedly hired by Dominican attorney

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic — Three women were paid to falsely claim in videotaped interviews that they had sex for money with a U.S. senator in the Dominican Republic, a spokesman for the police said Monday.

The women, whose claims generated media attention in the United States, were hired by a Dominican attorney to make the videotaped statements, spokesman Maximo Baez told reporters. Two of the women received about $425 and the other was paid about $300, he said.

Authorities are seeking to interrogate the attorney, Melanio Figueroa, about the payments and have not determined his motive or whether he was in turn paid by someone else to set up the interviews, Baez said.