Senator Bob Menendez showed his married lover a safe stuffed with cash 15 years before the FBI raided his home, an explosive dossier shared with The Post alleges.
The lover bragged to her friends that she had seen “bundles of cash” stuffed in “hidden places” in 2007, according to the document.
Sen. Bob Menendez, the veteran New Jersey Democrat, is accused of having a had torrid affair with married Spanish-language newspaper publisher Cecilia Reynolds in 2007, with claims she boasted of seeing his safe stuffed with cash. New York Post
During the alleged affair, Reynolds, then 44, posed for this nude photo during a trip to Puerto Rico. It was included in an anonymous dossier with these white markings. The dossier was circulated in 2013 and obtained in full by The Post. New York Post
And it also claimed that Menendez boasted about “kickbacks from contractors and influence seeking people” while they conducted a torrid affair which included nude photos and sex on both a private jet and a bed the senator said had been used by President John F. Kennedy.
The revelations come after veteran Democrat Menendez, 70, and his second wife, Nadine Arslanian, were indicted on bribery and corruption charges last year after federal authorities seized nearly $500,000 in cash and gold bars at their Englewood Cliffs, NJ, home.
And last week, federal prosecutors alleged in a new filing that Arslanian, 56, received a diamond engagement ring as part of the alleged bribery scheme and used an alternate phone the couple dubbed “007” to communicate with one of their alleged co-conspirators.
The couple and their co-accused, New Jersey businessmen Fred Daibes, Wael Hana and Jose Uribe, have all pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Menendez claims the gold bars were Arslanian’s mother’s and that he withdrew the cash from his bank accounts for decades because of “the history of my family facing confiscation in Cuba.”
The Post first revealed in 2013 that Mendendez had conducted an affair with Cecilia Reynolds — a married former church secretary whom he met when she was the publisher of a small Spanish-language newspaper in Freehold, NJ.
Fifteen years before the FBI raided Sen. Bob Menendez’s home and alleged that they found these gold bars, he is alleged to have shown a safe stuffed with cash to his lover, Cecilia Reynolds, and boasted about kickbacks. AP
Menendez and second wife, Nadine Arslanian, have denied charges of bribery and corruption, including selling his power and influence. The charges came after the FBI allegedly found cash and gold bars in their home.
The 2022 FBI raid on Menendez and his wife’s home allegedly found bundles of cash, some stuffed in jackets bearing his name. He claims he long amassed cash because of his Cuban family’s fear of having their wealth confiscated. AP
The allegations about hidden cash were made in a dossier about the affair which was circulated in 2013 by an anonymous author to outlets including the New York Times and the National Legal and Policy Center, a Virginia-based ethics watchdog group.
The Post was sent a version in 2013 and has now obtained a fuller copy of the 13-page document.
In 2013 Menendez was under federal investigation for possible influence-selling which led to an indictment but not conviction.
The nude photo and another image of the couple were apparently partially redacted before being included in the 13-page dossier.
This photo was also included in the dossier with these white marks on it, showing Menendez and Reynolds posing together in Puerto Rico during what it claimed was a week filled with “sexcapades.” New York Post
Reynolds addressed claims of an affair to The Post in 2013 when she said allegations “peddled by a former disgruntled business partner are false and malicious.” It is unclear if such a person exists or was responsible for the dossier. J.C. Rice
Now The Post can disclose that the dossier claims that Reynolds boasted about the senator’s cash piles to friends in 2007 — 15 years before the FBI allegedly discovered bags, jackets and even boots stuffed with banknotes at his Bergen County home, as well as the cache of gold bars.
“She knows a lot of intimate stuff about Menendez and even knows federal and state secrets and all about his kickback schemes etc.,” the document claimed.
“She boasted to her friends that he always had bundles of cash lying around in his safe and hidden places.
“She was told by him that he has kickbacks from contractors and influence seeking people.”
Menendez met Mexican-American publisher Reynolds in 2005. He is alleged to have seduced her in 2007 by offering a trip to Puerto Rico, staying at the governor’s official beach house. This photo matches images of the beach house. New York Post
Menendez is alleged to have promised Reynolds that they would have sex on a bed used by President John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline during their visit there in 1961. He is seen at what appears to be the governor’s beach house. New York Post
Menendez’s attorney Robert Luskin did not return a request for comment. Reynolds also did not return a request for comment.
In June 2013 Reynolds said in a statement to The Post: “My husband and I were separated for a period of time in the past.
“Any and all allegations being peddled by a former disgruntled business partner are false and malicious.”
Her husband, Matt Reynolds, told a reporter the couple was married when the affair allegedly happened. He said he would “neither confirm nor deny” his wife’s relationship with Menendez.
A photo in the dossier shows Reynolds with a uniformed US Forest Service official in what appears to be El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico. New York Post
A matching photo of Menendez shows him with the same official in a tropical setting. The dossier claimed that he Reynolds, a former church secretary had enjoyed VIP treatment from officials during their sex-fueled vacation. New York Post
The senator’s office released a statement six minutes after Reynolds, saying, “These are the same kind of questionably timed smear tactics that we’ve seen before, and we’re not going to dignify them with a comment.”
While The Post cannot verify that Reynolds saw piles of cash, her connection to Menendez is a matter of public record. Photographs in the dossier show them together in settings which match places in Puerto Rico, where the document alleged they had a sex-fueled seven-day trip in February 2007.
Reynolds, a Mexican immigrant who had been the secretary of St. Rose of Lima Catholic church in Freehold, founded a small, monthly Spanish-language newspaper called “Nosotros” — which translates as “Us” — in 2002, aimed at the growing Latin American community in Monmouth County, NJ.
She met Menendez in 2005 in her capacity as Nosotros’ publisher. At the time Menendez was a Congressman representing New Jersey’s 14th District, centered on Union City, 45 miles away.
Menendez met Reynolds in 2005, the year he divorced first wife Jane Jacobsen (left), with whom he has daughter Alicia (right) who is now an MSNBC anchor and author of a book which earned her an appearance on The View. The ex-couple also have a son Robert Jr., now a New Jersey Democratic congressman. Alicia Menendez / Instagram
Menendez was alleged to have left Jacobsen, his wife since 1976, for his one-time aide Kay LiCausi, 20 years his junior. Neither he nor LiCausi ever confirmed if they had a relationship. In 2007 a federal probe examined whether he did her favors but did nor result in any charges. LinkedIn
His marriage to his first wife, Jane Jacobsen, an educator and the mother of his two children — Robert Jr., now a New Jersey congressman and Alicia, now an MSNBC anchor — ended in divorce in 2005, amid allegations that he had left her for his one-time aide Kay LiCausi, 20 years his junior. Neither he nor LiCausi ever confirmed they were in a relationship.
Menendez provided a testimonial for the paper, calling it “one of the most substantive newspapers in either English or Spanish that I have read,” and was glowingly portrayed in Nosotros.
In January 2006 he was appointed to the Senate and when he ran for election for a full term in November 2006, his campaign placed a full-page ad in Nosotros.
In February of the next year, the dossier alleged, Menendez “seduced” Reynolds, offering her a seven-day “sexual rendezvous” in Puerto Rico, traveling on a private jet belonging to Salomon Melgen — a south Florida eye surgeon who was the senator’s friend and benefactor — and staying at the island’s governor’s “official residence.”
Reynolds’ newspaper offered gushing coverage of Democrats, including Menendez. When they first met in 2005 Menendez was a member of the House whose district was 45 miles from the paper’s Monmouth County base. NOSOTROS
Reynolds is alleged to have flown to Puerto Rico on Menendez’s friend and benefactor — and later co-accused — Salomon Melgen private jet, having sex at 25,000 ft “even during turbulence.” One of Melgen’s jets had a fold-down bed. AP
Menendez promised “the best luxury, sleeping and having sex on the bed that JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy slept,” the dossier alleged. (The Kennedys had stayed in Puerto Rico in 1961.)
“For seven days, they had wild sex, was provided official police escort, and an official VIP treatment with official drivers and attendants at their disposal,” the dossier alleged. Photographs in it show both Menendez and Reynolds posing with a man in US Forest Service uniform while visiting sites in Puerto Rico.
The 2013 dossier alleged that Reynolds “boasts even now to her closest Latina friends what it was like to have sex at 25,000 feet with Menendez even during turbulence.”
During the trip, the dossier alleged, Reynolds posed for a nude photograph — which is included in the document — and the couple stayed at the Puerto Rico governor’s official beach house. Photographs in the document match images of the house, at El Convento beach in the north-east of the island.
Reynolds was photographed reading a newspaper on a deck at what appears to be the official beach house of Puerto Rico’s governor. The image matches photographs of the residence at El Convento beach, in the north-east of the island. New York Post
The dossier included this image of the governor’s beach residence. In 2007, the governor was Aníbal Acevedo Vilá who in 2017 told The New York Times that Menendez was effectively the island’s senator, so close was their relationship. New York Post
What appeared to be Menendez was photographed entering Yokahú Tower, in El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, behind a man in a US Forest Service uniform. New York Post
In 2007, Menendez was being investigated by federal prosecutors over possible wrongdoing with LiCausi, but no charges were brought.
After the trip, the dossier alleged, Reynolds returned to her husband.
Two years later Menendez helped Reynolds set up a social service agency for immigrants, despite her lack of training in the field.
He wrote to Monmouth University — for which he secured $7m in federal grants — calling her “extraordinary,” which helped her secure admission to a highly competitive business incubator program, where she was mentored in coming up with the Nosostros Center for Immigration Services in Asbury Park, NJ.
The opening ceremony took place in May 2010. By then Menendez had moved on to a new love, Gwendolyn Beck, a former money manager for convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
By 2010 Menendez had found love with Gwendolyn Beck, whom he took to a White Houser state dinner. She was a longtime associate of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. She has not responded to allegations she was involved in sex trafficking. AP
Beck was photographed partying at Mar-a-Lago with the dead pedophile in 2000, along with Prince Andrew and Donald Trump’s then girlfriend Melania Knauss, now the former First Lady. Beck managed Epstein’s money at Morgan Stanley. Getty Images
Menendez dispatched his deputy chief of staff to deliver a Senate proclamation in Spanish declaring the center an important asset in the community.
Despite the hoopla, the center did not prosper, with critics charging that instead of providing free legal help for immigrants, it directed them to private attorneys. It was evicted for not paying rent, and New Jersey revoked its non-profit status in 2013, according to public records.
The senator also posed with Reynolds in a group photo that appeared on Nosostros’ front page after a May 2011 visit to another immigrant center she helped set up in Freehold. That year Reynolds donated $2,500 to Menendez’s campaign, according to public records.
In 2013, when the dossier was circulated, Menendez and Melgen were both under federal investigation, which was to lead to indictments against them both.
Separately, The Daily Caller had just reported allegations that the men had used underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic. The woman who made the underage sex allegations later recanted them and Menendez, who was never charged with underage sex, angrily denied the claims as a “right wing” smear.
In 2011 Reynolds was still in Menendez’s circles, posing with him and what were said to be clients of her advice centre for migrants. He helped it get off the ground but it did not prosper, losing its non-profit status and being evicted by 2013. Nosotros
In 2013, just before the dossier circulated, Menendez took his then-girlfriend, Alicia Mucci (left) to his Senate swearing in by then vice president Joe Biden. Also there were daughter Alicia (second right) and son Robert Jr. (second left). Getty Images
Menendez by then was dating Alicia Mucci, a widowed mother of five from Paramus, NJ, to whom he proposed in the Capitol Dome in December 2013.
In 2015, Menendez was charged with helping Melgen, including deploying his Senate staff to secure immigration visas for six foreign girlfriends of the married doctor, in return for favors.
Melgen, who donated $751,000 to Menendez’s 2012 re-election alone, allegedly provided the senator with trips on his private jet, stays at his luxury villa in the Dominican Republic — with Beck as a guest in 2010— and 650,000 American Express points to secure him a suite at a top Paris hotel where he wooed an unnamed girlfriend.
The lawmaker was charged with lobbying the administration to adjust Medicare reimbursements in an attempt to make millions for Melgen. Menendez split from Mucci on the eve of the trial.
Menendez was a regular visitor to the Caribbean villa of Salomon Melgen, one of his biggest benefactors, taking Beck in 2010. Both men were indicted on corruption charges in 2015, which were dropped after a mistrial two years later.
In 2019 Menendez proposed to Nadine Arslanian on a Congressional trip to India. He moved into her home where the FBI allegedly found $500,000 in cash and gold in a 2022 raid. Both have pleaded not guilty to corruption charges. Robert&Nadine/YouTube
It is not known if Reynolds, who the dossier alleges was on Melgen’s jet, was questioned by the FBI during the investigation.
The federal bribery case against Melgen and Menendez ended in a mistrial in November 2017 and early in 2018, the Department of Justice decided against a retrial of Menendez.
Melgen was sentenced to 17 years in prison for a $73 million Medicare fraud scheme but was pardoned by then president Donald Trump in 2020, after lobbying by Menendez.
Menendez started dating Arslanian, a divorced mom of two, in early 2018, at the same time as she was dating singer R Kelly’s defense attorney.
He proposed to Arslanian, whom he nicknamed “Bubbles” in a nod to her cleavage, at the Taj Mahal during a Congressional trip to India in 2019, moved into her Englewood Cliffs home, and married her in 2020, two years before the FBI raid on their home which led to his latest indictment.
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