NEWARK – Baseless allegations from five years ago that Sen. Bob Menendez and Dr. Salomon Melgen consorted with underaged prostitutes in the Dominican Republic briefly resurfaced as a side issue in the duo’s corruption trial this afternoon, but neither the prosecution nor defense treated the debunked claims as serious and the judge in the case decreed the jury will hear none of it.

At issue was a CNN interview with Menendez from Feb. 2013, just after Menendez paid Melgen back $58,000 for earlier trips on Melgen’s private jet which the senator had not disclosed. The prosecution sought to play the interview for the jury, which includes questions about the lack of disclosure but ends with reporter Dana Bash asking Menendez to confront the prostitution allegations.

“The bottom line is all those smears are absolutely false,” Menendez said in the clip, which was played in the courtroom while jurors were absent.

“The smears that right-wing blogs have been pushing since the election – and that is totally unsubstantiated and it’s amazing to me that anonymous, nameless, faceless individuals on a web site can drive that type of story into the mainstream,” Menendez added in the interview.

Prosecutors had already blurred a reference to “sex parties” carried in the news ticker at the bottom of the screen and had planned to bleep the word “prostitute” in Bash’s question. But, ironically, defense attorneys wanted more of the clip to be played to establish why Menendez incorrectly stated he had been on three flights on Melgen’s jet rather than five.

“We all know that they’re demonstrably false,” Melgen’s lawyer Kirk Ogrosky said of the prostitution claims, which were spread by right-wing blogs and collapsed when the young women allegedly involved said they had never met Menendez. “These things have been played out.”

According to the prosecution, Menendez’s statement on the number of flights is evidence of concealment and a consciousness of guilt. Ogrosky indicated Menendez may have misspoke since he was flustered by the allegations, which were pushed by right-wing blogs just prior to Menendez’s 2012 re-election campaign.

“I believe it was an innocuous statement,” Ogrosky said. “I believe it was a mistake.”

Saying there was “no way on God’s green earth” he would allow statements about prostitution into the trial, Judge William Walls instructed prosecutors to trim the clip, both at the end where Bash asked Menendez to respond to the controversy and at the beginning where she spoke about how Menendez walked across the Capitol building to respond on camera.

Earlier today, prosecutors finally started laying out a cumulative timeline of the alleged conspiracy in the case, comparing the dates of the senator’s actions on behalf of Melgen to the dates of private jet travel and Dominican vacations for Menendez that allegedly served as bribes.

During lengthy direct examination of an FBI agent through the late morning and early afternoon, the prosecution made its case for a quid pro quo in the most clear terms since opening arguments. However, the official actions and Dominican getaways are separated from each other by weeks, months, or years.

The closest time frame was between Menendez assisting Melgen with a securing visa for Brazilian actress Juliana Lopes Leite, which the indictment claims was the married Melgen’s girlfriend, and a flight to the Dominican Republic five and a half weeks later.

Two women accompanied Menendez on separate trips to the Dominican Republic: Maria Almeida, the former head of a Union City real estate agency who was hired to work in his congressional office, and Gwendolyn Beck, a former independent congressional candidate in Virgina who appeared on Menendez’s arm for a 2010 White House dinner.

The trial continues tomorrow, but will recess at 1 p.m. In recognition of the Jewish high holiday Rosh Hashanah. The CNN interview will be played for the jury tomorrow, but only after Walls gets a look at the final cut before the jurors come into the courtroom.