The police report reveals allegations of assault against Hegseth, Trump’s chosen secretary of defense

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — A woman told police she was sexually assaulted by Pete Hegseth in 2017 after he took her phone, blocked the door of a California hotel room and refused to let her leave, according to a detailed investigative report made public late Wednesday.

Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and candidate for defense secretary by President-elect Donald Trump, told 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.

“The matter was fully investigated and I was fully exonerated,” Hegseth told reporters Thursday at the Capitol, where he met with senators to build support for his nomination.

The report does not say that police determined the allegations were false. Police recommended the case report be forwarded to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review.

Tim Palatore, Hegseth’s attorney, has said the woman was paid an undisclosed sum in 2023 as part of a confidential settlement to avert the threat of what he described as a baseless lawsuit.

The 22-page police report was released in response to a public records request and provides the first detailed account of what the woman claimed she did — an account that conflicts with Hegseth’s version of events. The report cited police interviews with the alleged victim, a nurse who treated her, a hotel employee, another woman at the event and Hegseth.

The woman’s name has not been released, and The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

A spokeswoman for the Trump transition said Thursday that the report “confirms” what Hegseth’s legal team has been saying “all along.”

Investigators were first notified of the alleged assault, the report said, by a nurse who called them after a patient requested a sexual assault investigation. The patient told medical staff that she thought she had been attacked five days earlier, but that she could not remember much of what happened. She reported that something may have been slipped into her drink before she ended up in the hotel room where she said the attack occurred.

Police collected the unwashed dress and underwear she had worn that night, the report said.

The woman’s partner, who was staying with her at the hotel, told police he became concerned about her that evening after she did not return to their room. At two in the morning he went to the hotel bar, but she was not there. A few hours later she returned and apologized for ‘feeling asleep’. A few days later she told him she had been sexually assaulted.

The woman, who helped organize the California Federation of Republican Women meeting at which Hegseth spoke, told police that she witnessed the TV host’s inappropriate behavior throughout the night and that she saw him punch the thighs of several had seen women caressing. According to the report, she texted a friend that Hegseth was giving off a “creeper” vibe.

After the event, the woman and others attended an after-party in a hotel suite, where she said she confronted Hegseth and told him she “didn’t appreciate how he treated women,” the report said.

A group of people, including Hegseth and the woman, left for the hotel bar. Then “things got vague,” the woman told police.

She remembered having drinks with Hegseth and others at the bar, the police report said. She also told police that she had gotten into an argument with Hegseth at the hotel pool, a story supported by a hotel employee who was sent to deal with the disturbance and spoke to police, according to the report.

Soon, she told police, she found herself in a hotel room with Hegseth, who took her phone and locked the door with his body so she couldn’t leave, the report said. She also told police she remembered saying “no” a lot, the report said.

Her next memory was of lying on a couch or bed with her bare torso hovering above her, his dog tags dangling, the report said. Hegseth served in the National Guard and rose to the rank of major.

After Hegseth finished, she recalled him throwing a towel at her and asking if she was OK, the report said. She told police she had no memory of returning to her own hotel room and had suffered nightmares and memory loss ever since.

At the time of the alleged assault, Hegseth, now 44, was divorcing his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he had a child with a Fox News producer who is now his third wife, according to court documents and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after Hegseth’s infidelity, court records show.

Hegseth, who joined Fox News in 2014 as a contributor before becoming co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” left the network after Trump announced his intention to nominate him.

Hegseth said he attended an after-party and drank beer, but not liquor, and acknowledged that he was “buzzed” but not drunk.

He said he met the woman at the hotel bar and she led him by the arm back to his hotel room, which surprised him because he initially had not planned to have sex with her, the report said.

Hegseth told investigators that the sexual encounter that followed was consensual, adding that more than once he explicitly asked if she was comfortable. Hegseth said in the morning that the woman was “showing early signs of remorse,” and he assured her he would not tell anyone about the encounter.

Hegseth’s attorney said a payment was made to the woman as part of a confidential settlement a few years after the police investigation because Hegseth was concerned that she was willing to file a lawsuit that he feared could lead to he was fired from Fox News, where he was a popular host. The lawyer would not disclose the amount of the payment.

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Slodysko reported from Washington and Linderman from Baltimore.

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