Defense pick Pete Hegseth paid accuser but denies sexual assault, attorney says

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault as part of a nondisclosure agreement, though he maintained that their encounter was consensual, according to a statement from his lawyer Saturday and other documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, said that Hegseth was “visibly intoxicated” at the time of the incident, and maintained that police who were contacted a few days after the encounter by the woman concluded “the Complainant had been the aggressor in the encounter.” Police have not confirmed that assertion.

Hegseth, a Minnesota native, agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to the woman because he feared that revelation of the matter “would result in his immediate termination from Fox,” where he works as a host, the statement said.

The statement came after a detailed memo was sent to the Trump transition team this week by a woman who said she is a friend of the accuser. The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, alleged he raped the then-30-year-old conservative group staffer in his room after drinking at a hotel bar. The person who sent the memo to the transition team did not respond to requests for comment from The Post.

The accuser, whose identity has not been made public, filed a complaint with the police alleging she was sexually assaulted days after the Oct. 7, 2017 encounter in Monterey, California, but the local district attorney did not bring charges. Police confirmed that they investigated the incident. After she threatened litigation in 2020, Hegseth made the payment and she signed the nondisclosure agreement, his attorney said.

The detailed, four-page memo about the incident has set off debate among senior Trump transition officials, but so far Trump has stood behind Hegseth. Spokesman Steven Cheung earlier this week said: “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

The documents from Hegseth’s attorney and the memo to the transition team from someone who said she is a friend of the woman and was “present and involved” in the case tell drastically different stories about what happened seven years ago at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa - although both sides agree that Hegseth had a sexual encounter with a woman there.

Hegseth, whose second wife had filed for divorce the previous month, had traveled to Monterey to speak to a California Federation of Republican Women conference. Afterward, according to his lawyer, he went to the hotel bar with a group of attendees.

The memo sent to the Trump team, the details of which have not been previously reported, said that the woman identified in the memo only as “Jane Doe” was there with the California Federation of Republican Women. The woman was staying at the hotel with her small children and her husband, according to the memo, which laid out the woman’s complaint.

One of her responsibilities at the conference was to make sure Hegseth made it back to his room and left in time the next morning for the 90-minute drive to the nearby airport, the memo said.

At some point in the evening, the complaint alleged, Jane Doe received a text from two women in the bar who told her that “Hegseth was getting pushy about his interest in taking them upstairs to his room.” Jane Doe, who was nearby, came over and talked to those two women, and after they left, she “remembered sensing that Hegseth was irritated,” the memo said.

What happened next is in dispute.

According to the memo, Jane Doe “didn’t remember anything until she was in Hegseth’s hotel room and then stumbling to find her hotel room.” The memo said her memory of six to nine hours “was very hazy,” and that her husband was searching for her and was relieved when she finally showed up.

The following day, the woman returned home and “had a moment of hazy memory of being raped the night before, and had a panic attack,” the memo said.

The woman then went to the emergency room, where she was examined with a rape kit that “was positive for semen,” the memo said. The woman gave county authorities a statement about what happened, according to the memo sent to the transition team.

Her statement has not been publicly released. The city of Monterey said in a statement Thursday that its police department investigated a sexual assault allegation against Hegseth, with no charges filed. The friend of Jane Doe wrote in the memo that she had been in the presence of the woman at various events for 15 years and had “never known her to be irresponsible, drunk, or ever of questionable character.”

Hegseth, according to a statement provided by his lawyer, encountered the woman at the party at the bar, and said that she went with him to his room afterward.

“Witnesses stated that Mr. Hegseth was visibly intoxicated but the Complainant was not, as she led him by the arm to his hotel room,” the statement from Hegseth’s lawyer said. He said that video surveillance confirmed the two were walking “with arms locked together” and that the woman was smiling.

According to Hegseth’s lawyer, once the two were in his hotel room, the woman did not leave and was “the aggressor in initiating sexual activity.”

After the encounter, the woman “expressed concern because she had not gone back to her room,” according to Hegseth’s lawyer. Hegseth told police that she planned to tell her husband she had fallen asleep on the couch in another guest’s room, according to the statement.

Hegseth’s lawyer also alleged that the medical examination of the woman “produced no evidence that the sexual contact was nonconsensual” and that a police investigation found no evidence to support charging Hegseth.

The woman’s friend said in her memo to transition officials that she believed no charges were brought because the woman “could not recall all the details” and it became a “he said, she said” situation.

Dean Flippo, the Monterey County District Attorney at the time of the incident, said in an interview Saturday that he had no recollection of the allegations. He said he had never heard Hegseth’s name until he read the news of his potential nomination for the Pentagon job.

“I just have no recollection of the incident at all and hadn’t heard the name before,” he said.

Flippo, who ran the office for nearly 30 years until January 2019, said he would counsel his staff to alert him if a case had the potential to become high-profile, such as allegations involving Hollywood stars. “I would hope my staff would see that if something had the potential of publicity that they would let me know so we could prepare to handle that. But I just have no recollection of that in this instance,” he said.

Now in his mid 80s, Flippo said the office took allegations of sexual assault seriously, collected as much evidence as possible and tried cases they thought they could prove. “Is there proof beyond a reasonable doubt? That’s what we have as a responsibility in our business. That’s what goes into the question of do we go ahead?”

The current district attorney, Jeannine Pacioni, did not respond to a request for comment.

Some time after the incident, the woman and her husband hired a lawyer “to ensure Hegseth didn’t get off without punishment,” according to the memo sent to the transition team. Hegseth’s lawyer proposed they sign a nondisclosure agreement, the details of which have not been made public, the memo said. The agreement was signed about two and a half years after the alleged assault, Hegseth’s lawyer said.

Hegseth’s attorney said that two years after the incident the woman “began to make noise” about filing a lawsuit, prompting Hegseth’s attorney to send a cease-and-desist letter.

Parlatore provided a copy of that letter to The Post, dated Feb. 2, 2020 with the recipient’s name redacted, in which he wrote that “should you choose to proceed with the filing of a frivolous lawsuit against my client, my client has directed our firm to pursue all available remedies against you.” The letter went on to say: “Both you and Mr. Hegseth have spouses, families and children that you undoubtedly both love very much and a public fight is not in anyone’s best interest - especially in a case like this where both the law and the facts are against.”

In December 2020, the woman hired a lawyer who entered into negotiations about the matter, Hegseth’s lawyer said. In his statement, the lawyer said that “Hegseth strongly felt that he was the victim of blackmail and innocent collateral damage in a lie that the Complainant was holding onto to keep her marriage intact.”

However, “knowing that it was the height of the MeToo movement,” Hegseth “ultimately decided to enter into a settlement for a significantly reduced amount.” The statement did not specify the requested or reduced amount, or when it was paid.