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

Hegseth, a Fox News personality and President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, told police at the time that the meeting had been consensual and denied any wrongdoing, according to the report.

News about the allegations appeared 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.

Hegseth’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday. He has said Hegseth paid the woman in 2023 to leave the threat of a groundless 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 allegedly did — one that contradicts 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 was not released, and The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

A spokeswoman for the Trump transition said early Thursday that “the report confirms what Mr. Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false.”

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

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

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

The woman’s partner, who was staying at the hotel with her, told police he was worried about her that night after she didn’t return to their room. At 2 o’clock he went to the hotel bar, but she was not there. She returned a few hours later and apologized that she “must have fallen asleep”. A few days later, she told him that she had been sexually assaulted.

The woman, who helped organize the gathering of Republican Women of California where Hegseth spoke, told police she had watched the TV anchor act inappropriately throughout the night and watched him fondle several women’s thighs. She texted a friend that Hegseth gave off a “sneaky” vibe, according to the report.

After the incident, 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 the way he treated women,” the report said.

A group of people, including Hegseth and the woman, camped out against the hotel bar. That’s when “things got fuzzy,” the woman told police.

She recalled having a drink at the bar with Hegseth and others, the police report states. She also told police she argued with Hegseth near the hotel pool, an account 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 was in a hotel room with Hegseth, who took her phone and blocked the door with his body so she couldn’t leave, according to the report. 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 Hegseth hovering over her bare chest, his dog tags dangling over her, the report said. Hegseth served in the National Guard and rose to major.

After Hegseth finished, she remembered him asking if she was “okay,” the report states. She told police that she did not remember how she got back to her own hotel room and had since suffered from nightmares and amnesia.

At the time of the alleged assault in 2017, Hegseth, now 44, was going through a divorce from his second wife, with whom he has three children. She filed for divorce after he fathered a child with a Fox News producer who is now his wife, according to court records and social media posts by Hegseth. His first marriage ended in 2009, also after Hegseth’s infidelity, according to court records.

Hegseth said he attended an after-party and drank beer but no liquor, admitting 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 had no intention of having sex with her in the first place, the report said.

Hegseth told investigators that the sexual encounter that followed was consensual, adding that he explicitly asked more than once if she was comfortable. Hegseth said this morning that the woman “showed 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 prepared to file a lawsuit that he feared could have resulted in his firing from Fox News, where he was a popular host. The lawyer did not want to disclose the amount of the payment.

___

Slodysko reported from Washington and Linderman reported from Baltimore.