Suspicious pay pal

Menendez coughed up after query: feds

New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez started paying big bucks for his flights on a wealthy pal’s private jet only after the press started sniffing around, according to documents introduced at his corruption trial on Thursday.

Federal prosecutors showed a Newark jury a $58,500 check Menendez gave to Dr. Salomon Melgen for two round-trip flights the pol took in 2010 on the eye doctor’s plane.

Prosecutors noted, however, that the check was made out in January 2013 — following a 2012 inquiry from a Washington Post reporter about those very same flights.

“The check was written after” the reporter started asking questions, FBI agent Christina Cobb said in response to a prosecutor’s questions about the timing of the check.

A separate document showed that Menendez was billed for the 2010 flights by Melgen’s son-in-law only after the newspaper’s November 2012 inquiry.

Menendez is charged with accepting bribes — including all-expense-paid trips, private jet excursions and $750,000 in campaign contributions — from the West Palm Beach ophthalmologist. In exchange, Menendez, a Democrat, helped the doctor with his business and personal affairs, which included allegations Melgen overbilled Medicare $8.9 million, according to prosecutors.

The documents capped an explosive week that included two of Melgen’s foreign girlfriends taking the stand. They and another Melgen gal pal secured visas to visit the married doctor, with help from Menendez.

Menendez and Melgen, both 63, have denied the allegations, claiming that any gifts and favors exchanged were the result of their decades-long friendship, which started in the 1990s before Menendez was a US senator.