METAIRIE, La. (AP) — U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., in seclusion since acknowledging dealings with an escort service, is returning to Washington, D.C., for votes in the Senate, his office said Sunday.

The two-sentence advisory did not say when Vitter planned to return. On Friday, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he had traded e-mails with Vitter and expected his colleague to return to the Capitol by Tuesday.

Vitter has been out of the public eye since releasing a statement July 9 apologizing for a ‘‘very serious sin,’’ acknowledging his Washington phone number was among those called several years ago by an escort service. Prosecutors claim that service was a prostitution operation.

Telephone records show that the service called Vitter’s number five times from 1999 to 2001, while he was a U.S. House member.

Several GOP colleagues in Washington and Louisiana have rallied to Vitter’s side, saying politicians deserve forgiveness when they err and repent. Some opponents have accused him of hypocrisy, noting that his career is built largely on an image as someone more ethical than the average politician.

Vitter, a married father of four, last month urged colleagues to devote more federal spending to programs urging sexual abstinence among teens. The best way to avert teen pregnancy, he wrote, is “by teaching teenagers that saving sex until marriage and remaining faithful afterwards is the best choice for health and happiness.”

In a June 2006 Senate speech supporting a constitutional amendment against gay marriage, Vitter said it was “well overdue that we in the Senate focus on nurturing, upholding, preserving and protecting such a fundamental social institution as traditional marriage.”

On Friday night, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who ran the escort service and whose phone records led to Vitter’s problems, said she was “disgusted at the hypocrisy” of the senator’s comments about gay marriage.

“How dare someone dictate one thing and practice another, and in the process deny so many in this country the opportunity for happiness,” said Palfrey. “In particular, I’m talking about dictating what constitutes a family. What constitutes a family is love, pure and simple.”