A woman told police she was sexually assaulted in 2017 by Pete Hegseth after he took her phone, blocked the door to her California hotel room and refused to leave her, according to a detailed investigative report released Wednesday.
Hegseth, Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump is secretary of defensetold the police at the time that the meeting was consensual and denied any wrongdoing, the report said.
News of the allegations surfaced last week when local officials released a brief statement confirming that a woman had accused Hegseth of sexual assault in October 2017 after he spoke at a Republican women’s event in Monterey.
CBS News
Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday.
The 22-page police report, obtained by Mediaite.com among other outlets, was released in response to a public records request and offers the first detailed account of what the woman allegedly experienced – which contradicts Hegseth’s version of events. .
The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, the nurse who treated her, hotel staff, other women at the event and Hegseth.
The woman’s name has not been released, and CBS News and The Associated Press typically do not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.
A spokeswoman for Trump’s transition said early Thursday that “the report corroborates what Mr. Hegseth’s lawyer has said all along: this incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because the police found false allegations.”
Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review.
Investigators were first alerted to the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault exam. The patient told medical personnel that he believed he had been assaulted five days earlier but could not remember what had happened. He reported that he dipped something in his drink before entering the hotel room where he said the attack took place.
Police collected the unwashed clothes and underwear worn that night, the report said.
A female partner who was staying at the hotel with him, told police they were worried about him that night after he didn’t return to his room. At 2 in the morning, he went to the hotel bar, but he was not there. He returned a few hours later, apologizing that he “had to sleep.” A few days later, she told me she had been sexually assaulted.
The woman told the police that she had witnessed the TV anchor acting inappropriately throughout the night and saw him stroking the woman’s leg. He texted a friend that Hegseth gave off a “creeper” vibe, according to the report.
After the event, the woman and others attended a party in a hotel room where she said she confronted Hegseth, telling him she “didn’t appreciate how he treated women,” the report states.
A group of people, including Hegseth and a woman, left for the hotel bar. That’s when “things got blurry,” the woman told police.
He recalled drinking at the bar with Hegseth and others, the police report stated. He also told police he got into an argument with Hegseth near the hotel pool, an account supported by hotel staff who were dispatched to deal with the disturbance and speak with police, according to the report.
A short time later, the accuser told police, she was inside the hotel room with Hegseth and he grabbed her phone and blocked the door with her body so she couldn’t leave, according to the report. He also told police he remembered “saying ‘no’ a lot,” the report said.
Her next memory is lying on a couch or bed with Hegseth hovering over her bare-chested, dog tag dangling over her, the state report. Hegseth served in the National Guard, rising to the rank of major.
After she said Hegseth ejaculated on her stomach, she recalled asking him if he was “OK,” the report said. He told police he didn’t remember how he got back to his hotel room alone and started having nightmares and memory loss.
At the time of the alleged attack in 2017, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce from his second wife, with whom he had three children. She filed for divorce after having a child with her now-wife Fox News producer, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. Their first marriage ended in 2009, also after Hegseth’s infidelity, according to court records.
Hegseth told police he attended the party and drank beer but did not consume “hard alcohol” and admitted to being “buzzed” but not drunk, according to the police report.
He said he met a woman at a hotel bar and he led her by the arm back to his hotel room, which surprised him because he had no intention of having sex with her, the report said.
Hegseth told investigators that the sexual encounter that followed was consensual, and that he clearly asked her more than once if she was comfortable. Hegseth said in the morning the woman “showed early signs of remorse” and he assured her that she would not tell anyone about the encounter.
Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, has told CBS News Hegseth paid a secret financial loan to a woman accused of sexual assault because he was worried the allegations would lead to his firing from Fox News.
Parlatore said Hegseth reached a settlement agreement to prevent the accuser from proceeding with the lawsuit, maintaining that he was innocent and that the sexual encounter was consensual. Hegseth denies wrongdoing.
Parlatore declined to disclose the amount of the settlement, saying only that it was “far, far less than we expected.” He characterized it as “mainly extortion and blackmail.”
Fox News Media said in a statement that it was “not made aware of the incident or the settlement.”
Trump’s transition team spoke with Parlatore after Hegseth was named as Trump’s defense secretary nominee, prosecutors said. He said he “explained it fully” but he did not know what Hegseth’s previous conversations with the transition team were, or if he had been informed of the sexual assault allegations and the settlement agreement before the announcement of his nomination for defense. secretary.
“This should have nothing to do with the confirmation process,” he said.
Trump indicated that the revelations did not prevent him from selecting Hegseth as defense secretary.
