(MCT) — WASHINGTON — The leader of a government watchdog group called out Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., on Thursday, saying that he violated ethics rules by taking two free trips on a friend’s plane in 2010 but that he may avoid prosecution nonetheless because he paid the charter rate of $58,500 for the trips last month.

“What he did was he waited to get caught and then he paid for it,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said about Menendez’s decision to pay Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye surgeon and Democratic donor, for two flights to the Dominican Republic. “He did violate the rules.”