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New details about Hegseth’s sexual assault claim documented in police report
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New details about Hegseth’s sexual assault claim documented in police report

The woman who accused Pete Hegseth of sexual assault in 2017 told police at the time that he took her phone and blocked her from leaving her hotel room the night of the incident, according to a 22-page police report obtained by ABC News.

The report, compiled in October 2017 by the Monterey Police Department, provides graphic new details about an alleged altercation that now threatens to derail Hegseth’s bid to become President-elect Donald Trump’s secretary of defense.

The report documents a police investigation that did not lead to charges against the former Fox News star. It includes interviews with the woman, who is identified only as Jane Doe, and Hegseth, who told police the encounter was consensual.

US President Donald Trump is interviewed by Fox and Friends co-host Pete Hegseth at the White House in Washington, US, April 6, 2017.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

As ABC News previously reported, Doe met Hegseth at an event hosted by the California Federation of Republican Women in Monterey, California, where Hegseth was featured as a speaker.

At an after-party event, according to the police report, Doe told police he had been drinking “a lot more than normal” and described his memories as “fuzzy” but that he remembered confronted Hegseth at one point after observing him “rubbing women on their legs” — a claim corroborated by another witness in a separate interview with police.

“JANE DOE stated that the next memory she had was being in an unfamiliar room” with Hegseth, who she said “took the phone out of her hands” and when she tried to leave , “blocked the door with his body,” according to what she told investigators.

Doe said she remembered Hegseth’s military tags “floating over her face” and said he eventually “ejaculated on her stomach,” according to the report. Doe told police she remembered saying “no” a lot during the meeting.

A few days later, Doe told her partner she believed she had been sexually assaulted and visited a nurse, who administered a sexual assault exam and first alerted authorities.

When police approached Hegseth as part of their investigation, he “stated that the engagement between himself and JANE DOE was mutual.”

“HEGSETH stated that he made sure on several occasions that JANE DOE was comfortable with what was going on between the two of them,” according to the report.

The officer who prepared the report wrote that the two “had been drinking and the events were vague and lacking in specificity and a fluid sequence of events.” Investigators obtained video surveillance from the hotel and collected Doe’s clothes and underwear as evidence in their investigation.

Tim Parlatore, an attorney for Hegseth, said in a statement Saturday before the report was posted online that the allegations are false and Hegseth settled in December 2020 only because he feared his career would suffer if her allegations would be made public.

Parlatore emphasized that police had not brought charges and said Hegseth was the victim of “blackmail” and “false claims of sexual assault.”