Prosecutors in California have disputed Pete Hegseth’s claim that his alleged victim previously accused additional men of rape.
According to a bombshell report in the New Yorker, Monterey County District Attorney had “no such evidence” to support that Hegseth’s “Jane Doe” levied “false” sexual assault claims against others.
A copy of the public records request, reviewed by the Daily Beast, shows the office specifically wrote “we know of no record” of “another case where the same complainant made a similar claim.”
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The revelation comes one week after Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense demanded the agency release a file that he and his legal team reportedly believed would contain exonerating information about a 2017 sexual assault allegation.
The alleged assault occurred when Hegseth spoke at the California Federation of Republican Women’s convention in Monterey. According to the 2017 police report, the veteran allegedly trapped “Doe” in his hotel room, took her phone, and assaulted her as she repeatedly told him “no.” The victim reportedly told a nurse she thought her drink may have been spiked.
Hegseth claims the sexual encounter was consensual, and he was never charged with a crime. Meanwhile, his lawyer, Tim Parlatore, accused “Doe” of being the “aggressor” and claimed she “tried to blackmail him.”
Parlatore said unnamed “sources” told him law enforcement declined to charge Hegseth for the 2017 alleged rape because they discovered that the accuser had previously brought a false rape accusation against someone else. The magazine’s investigation found no evidence to support this claim.
And, in 2020, the former Fox News star paid his alleged victim an undisclosed amount as part of a settlement agreement. Both parties agreed to sign nondisclosure agreements about the incident.
Multiple accounts, detailed in the New Yorker’s Monday report, shed light on a pattern of alleged drunk and disorderly conduct by Hegseth, including inappropriate sexual advances, while managing veterans organizations that left staff “disgusted” by his behavior.
“He had a kind of what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas kind of attitude, while his wife and kids were in Minnesota,” one former Fox News colleague told the magazine. “He was a huge drinker. I can’t say if he had a problem, but he was very handsy with women, too. I’ve certainly seen him drunk.”
Hegseth’s latest controversy comes on the heels of a leaked email from 2018, sent by his mother, slamming him for having “abused” women, shortly after his contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha.
“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say… get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” she wrote.
Parlatore declined to comment when contacted by the Beast.
