The woman at the center of sexual assault allegations against Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth did not appear to witnesses to be intoxicated before or after their sexual encounter, according to the police report on the incident.
The alleged victim, referred to throughout the redacted report as “Jane Doe,” said that she did not remember details of how she returned from a bar to a hotel room with Hegseth or much of their tryst, possibly because she may have been drugged or because she had been drinking, the police report states. However, multiple witnesses who recounted what they saw that night in October 2017 to the investigating police officers said that Jane Doe did not appear to be drunk before or after the sexual encounter.
The incident occurred at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa in Monterey, California, where Hegseth spoke as part of a weekend conference hosted by the California Federation of Republican Women. While Jane Doe alleged that Hegseth sexually assaulted her after a late night at the hotel bar, Hegseth’s attorney has maintained that the encounter was consensual and that the allegations amount to de facto blackmail.
Jane Doe said that she consumed some alcohol that night, including a small amount of champagne and one drink at a bar attached to the hotel, and that she did not recall drinking any liquor, according to the police report.
A first witness, another conference attendee who was at the after party and bar with Jane Doe, said that she recalled seeing Jane Doe having “some vodka,” but added that Jane Doe appeared only to be buzzed rather than fully drunk. The first witness told police that Jane Doe seemed to her to be “coherent” and not “intoxicated to a point where she would not be able to care for her own safety” at the hotel bar, according to the police report.
That witness also said that Jane Doe and another unidentified woman — whom Hegseth allegedly propositioned to return to his room — were flirting with Hegseth at the bar by doing things like touching his arm.
A police officer reviewed available security footage from the hotel and observed Hegseth and Jane Doe walking out from the attached hotel bar “with arms locked together” and noted that “both did not have an unsteady gait.”
The unidentified woman whom Hegseth pursued at the bar before he ended up with Jane Doe told police that Jane Doe did not look or act like someone who was intoxicated when they last saw each other that night after the bar closed. The witness added that Jane Doe acted normally the next day and did not act as though she was hungover or otherwise out of sorts.
At some point after Hegseth and Jane Doe left the hotel bar, the pair got into some sort of argument near the hotel’s pool, prompting other guests to lodge noise complaints given the time of night that the commotion occurred, according to the police report. The man working the front desk at the time went to the pool area to address the problem.
While speaking with Jane Doe and Hegseth, the front desk attendant noted that Hegseth seemed to be rather drunk, while Jane Doe was “not intoxicated, was standing on her own and was very coherent,” according to the police report. The front desk attendant said that Jane Doe subsequently placed her hand and arm on Hegseth’s back and escorted him away from the scene.
Hegseth told the police that he did not recall any argument by the hotel’s pool or being belligerent with anyone, according to the report.
Notably, Jane Doe’s husband and children were also staying at the same hotel that weekend, and he and Jane Doe were exchanging text messages that night, according to the police report. He eventually got worried about his wife and went looking for her around the premises of the hotel, but could not find her.
Subsequently, at around 4 o’clock in the morning, Jane Doe returned to the hotel room where she was staying with her husband and let herself in, later claiming to the police that she did not remember how she got back, according to the police report. Jane Doe told her husband that she had accidentally fallen asleep elsewhere, and her husband noticed that she “did not have a hard time walking and was not slurring her words.”
Jane Doe and her husband had sex on the Monday after the weekend conference, which Jane Doe says triggered her memory of the encounter with Hegseth and eventually prompted her to seek a sexual assault exam.
Hegseth told the police that the encounter was wholly consensual, and that he maintained dialogue with Jane Doe throughout to ensure that her consent had not changed. Without specifying, Hegseth told the police that he saw “early signs of regret” from Jane Doe shortly after they had finished having sex.
Ultimately, Hegseth and Jane Doe settled out of court in 2020, with Hegseth’s attorney stating that Hegseth chose to settle because he feared that the allegations would ruin his career at Fox News if they became public.
The Trump transition team was reportedly “blindsided” by the allegations against Hegseth when they first heard of them after President-elect Donald Trump announced Hegseth as his pick to run the Pentagon. While the corporate media has amplified the graphic details contained in the police report since it became public on Wednesday, it is unclear whether the situation will affect his ability to be confirmed by the Republican majority in the Senate.
