Senator a water rat

Menendez had ‘own brand’ on pal’s jet

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez was such a frequent passenger on his wealthy doctor pal’s private jet that the pilot stocked the plane with the pol’s favorite brand of bottled water, it emerged at the senator’s trial on Wednesday.

Pilot Robert Nylund testified in Newark federal court that he flew Menendez on Dr. Salomon Melgen’s private jet 16 times between 2008 and 2010, when he worked as the ophthalmologist’s pilot.

Menendez was such a frequent flier that the pilot requested the senator’s favorite beverages in a 2009 e-mail with the subject line “aircraft stock,” which asked that the plane be stocked with Evian water and several kinds of juices.

“Myself and the other pilot . . . figured these are items that should be on board if the senator was on the aircraft,” Nylund, who now flies for JetBlue, told the jury.

“It was common practice . . . for a special passenger [to] have the special provisions that they want.”

The only other passenger referenced in the e-mail was Melgen’s wife, who liked to drink Cointreau triple sec liqueur.

The eye doctor stands accused of using his jet, his Caribbean resort and $750,00 in campaign contributions to bribe Menendez, a sitting senator, into helping him with his business and personal needs, including an $8.9 million bill from Medicare.

At the time of the e-mail, Melgen had just upgraded from an eight-passenger Hawker jet to an 11-passenger Challenger jet, which came equipped with a kitchenette and a couch that pulled out into a bed, Nylund said.

In addition to jaunts on his private jet, Melgen also once forked over $8,036.02 for Menendez to charter an eight-passenger private jet from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Washington, DC — on his own, an earlier witness testified.

Menendez and Melgen, both 63, have argued that the private planes and other gifts were due to their decades-long friendship, and not part of a bribery scheme.