An unpaid intern for New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez was arrested for being an illegal immigrant on December 6, because Homeland Security asked federal agents to delay the arrest until after the election, the Associated Press reports. (Menendez's aides were notified after Sanchez's arrest.) The intern, 18-year-old Luis Abrahan Sanchez Zavaleta, is originally from Peru and in the U.S. on an expired visitor visa. In 2010, Sanchez had to register as a sex offender, but because he was a juvenile, the reason isn't public record. Sanchez told Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents he worked on immigration issues for the Democratic senator. The AP story broke just before Menendez went on MSNBC to talk about immigration reform.

The news comes not long after another bad story for Menendez, albeit with less reliable sourcing. The conservative site The Daily Caller reported just before Election Day that a a single "high-level government official from the Dominican Republic" claimed Menendez and a donor "have been having sex parties on the Caribbean nation for years." The Daily Caller also anonymously quoted two Dominican women who claimed Menendez paid them for sex in the country. These reports were not widely picked up outside conservative media.

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Elspeth Reeve