Politics
A fateful night in Monterey: Drinking, conservative banter, sexual assault allegations involving Pete Hegseth
On the afternoon of Oct. 12, 2017, a nurse at Kaiser Permanente called the Monterey Police Department to report that a patient had come in for a sexual assault exam.
The woman, the nurse told police, said she had been sexually assaulted four days earlier while at a Republican women’s conference at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel & Spa in the coastal California resort town.
The alleged assailant — though his name wouldn’t be revealed immediately — was a popular Fox News Channel host and the keynote speaker at the conference.
The woman, identified only as Jane Doe in police reports, told the nurse she wasn’t sure she wanted to involve authorities and didn’t want to disclose the person’s name at that point. She had been suffering from nightmares and bouts of sobbing after returning home from the conference, but had little memory of the sexual encounter. She feared she had been drugged. The woman, who has not been identified publicly, could not be reached for comment by The Times.
The nurse referred the woman to an emergency room for a sexual assault forensic exam. But the nurse’s call — made as a mandated reporter — triggered a law enforcement investigation that included interviews with hotel staff, a review of surveillance video, discussions with several of the woman’s associates and a conversation with the alleged perpetrator, Pete Hegseth, who assured police the encounter had been consensual.
No charges were ever filed. Monterey County Dist. Atty. Jeannine M. Pacioni said no charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The two parties eventually reached a private settlement, after which Doe signed a nondisclosure agreement.
The story seemed to end there — until Donald Trump nominated Hegseth to be Defense secretary. Now that night in Monterey has become the centerpiece in what could be one of the most contentious Senate confirmation fights in years.
In recent days, a police report on the incident and other details have offered a clearer picture about the allegations. But much remains unknown, including why local prosecutors decided not to file charges against Hegseth.
Shortly after the president-elect’s announcement of Hegseth’s nomination, a friend of the woman wrote a memo to Trump’s transition team saying that Hegseth had raped the then-30-year-old conservative group staffer in his hotel room in the early morning hours after a banquet dinner at the California Federation of Republican Women conference.
In response, Hegseth confirmed the financial settlement, saying through his lawyer that he had agreed to pay the woman to protect his job at Fox. But he vehemently denied committing assault. The woman, Hegseth’s lawyer said in a statement, “was the aggressor in initiating sexual activity.” Hegseth had been “visibly intoxicated” at the after-party in the hotel bar, the lawyer said, and the woman had “led him by the arm to his hotel room.”
“The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m gonna leave it,” Hegseth told reporters at the Capitol on Thursday.
Revelations of the incident have set off a firestorm, both in Washington and among members of the California Federation of Republican Women.
The federation is a nonprofit advocacy group composed mostly of retirees. Its members gather for luncheons, conferences and fundraisers to hear Republican politicians speak about conservative issues.
Many in the group were horrified that a favored conservative Republican Cabinet pick could be hurt by allegations.
“This thing is so f— bogus,” one of the organization’s officers yelled before hanging up on a Times reporter who called for comment.
This week, the Monterey Police Department released a redacted 22-page report detailing its investigation, including accounts of the recollections of Doe and Hegseth, along with several other attendees. Though police reports are typically not public in California, the document had been released because Hegseth had previously asked for a copy.
The police report offers the most complete picture yet of what occurred at the Monterey hotel on Oct. 7-8, 2017.
On the second day of the three-day gathering, Doe took a break in her hotel room where she was staying with her husband and at least one of her small children before the banquet dinner and keynote speech — the last major scheduled event of the conference — began at 6 p.m., according to text messages and sources with knowledge of the event.
Forty-five minutes later she texted with her husband from the banquet. The conversation turned to Hegseth.
“Our ladies are freaking drooling over him,” she wrote. She sent a photo of Hegseth standing at a podium holding a microphone and gesturing with his hand as he spoke.
“He doesn’t look even remotely familiar,” she said. “But apparently all the women know who he is.”
She continued: “He wears a ring on his pointer finger. It creeps me out.” She lamented that the event was taking so long.
After the banquet, the woman went to an after-party in another federation member’s hotel suite, where she had a glass of champagne. Hegseth was there too. A federation member who was there told police later that the woman “did not seem intoxicated, but had a buzz” at the event.
Around midnight, Doe, Hegseth and a second woman walked toward Knuckles, the sports bar in the hotel. Inside the bar, which has since closed, televisions and football helmets lined the walls. She texted her husband an update, saying that she was headed to the bar with a group of ladies. “Omg I have so much to tell you. This Pete dude is a … toooool,” she wrote.
While they were drinking at the bar, Hegseth allegedly put his hand on another woman’s knee. She told police that she made it clear it was “not acceptable,” but he still invited her to his room. She declined, according to the report.
The same woman tried to get Doe’s attention so she could act as a “crotch blocker” to deter Hegseth’s sexual advances, according to the report.
Doe told police that her memory started to get “fuzzy” while she was at the bar.
Around 1:30 a.m., Doe argued with Hegseth near the hotel pool about his behavior with women at the conference. He responded that he was a “nice guy,” according to the report. She later told investigators that Hegseth would rub women on their legs and she thought his actions were inappropriate.
A hotel employee who had been working that night told an investigator that guests had called the front desk to complain about two people causing a disturbance by the swimming pool about 1:30 a.m. The employee said that when he approached Hegseth and Doe, Hegseth cursed at him and said that he “had freedom of speech,” the report states. The woman intervened and said that “they were Republicans and apologized for Hegseth’s actions,” it said.
The staffer said the woman was “standing on her own and very coherent,” while Hegseth was “very intoxicated,” according to the report.
Doe placed her hand and arm on Hegseth’s back and escorted him toward the building where his room was, the employee told police. Hegseth later told an investigator he didn’t remember being chastised by the pool.
In the early morning hours, Doe’s husband sent her a text message: “Holy smokes lady…I don’t remember the last time you were socializing at nearly 2:00 a.m.” She responded, “Hahaha I know. I gotta make sure that to” — ending midsentence — and then stopped texting.
Her husband wrote back: “Doing ok? My love? Worried about you.”
Around 2 a.m. her husband went looking for Doe at Knuckles, but no one was there, he told investigators.
Doe next recalled being in a hotel room alone with Hegseth. She had her phone in her hand and Hegseth asked her who she was texting before taking her phone, she told police. She tried to leave the room, according to the report, but Hegseth blocked the door. She remembered saying “no” a lot, she told police.
Her next memory, she told police, was lying on a bed or couch with Hegseth’s dog tags hovering over her face. She said he ejaculated on her stomach, threw a towel at her and said to “clean it up” before asking her whether she was OK, according to the report.
Hegseth recalled the situation differently in an interview with authorities.
He told police that Doe led him to his hotel room, where things progressed between the two of them, according to the report. There was “always” conversation and “always” consensual contact between himself and Doe, he told police.
Hegseth recalled Doe displaying “early signs of regret” after the incident and said she would tell her husband she fell asleep on a couch in someone else’s room, according to the report.
Around 4 a.m., Doe returned to her hotel room and explained to her husband that she “must have fallen asleep.” She told police she didn’t start remembering what happened between her and Hegseth until she returned home the next day.
Politics
Trump announces model and philanthropist Somers Farkas, auto giant John Arrigo for ambassadorships
President-elect Trump has nominated Somers Farkas and John Arrigo for ambassadorships.
If confirmed, Arrigo, Arrigo, who is the vice president of the Arrigo Auto Group in West Palm Beach, Florida, would serve as ambassador to Portugal.
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“John is a highly successful entrepreneur in the automotive industry, and a champion golfer. For over thirty years, he has been an incredible leader in business in West Palm Beach, and is respected by all,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “I have known John for a long time. He will do an incredible job for our Country, and always put America FIRST.”
Arrigo has been a longtime associate of Trump’s, a Business Insider report said in 2021.
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Farkas, a model and philanthropist, would serve America’s interests in the island nation of Malta.
Farkas previously served on Trump’s Commission on White House Fellowships.
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In his announcement, Trump said she “has raised Millions of Dollars for charity, including for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Alzheimer’s Associate, Lighthouse Guild, the New York Women’s Foundation and, as a Trustee of the New York City Police Foundation where she has always BACKED THE BLUE.”
Politics
Biden commuted the death sentences of two California killers. Here's what we know about them
Two San Fernando Valley men, who were sentenced to death over a decade ago for killing five people, had their sentences commuted to life in prison on Monday by President Biden.
In 2007, Iouri Mikhel and Jurijus Kadamovas were sentenced to death after they were convicted of murdering five people in a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme. Prosecutors said the pair dumped the bodies in a remote Northern California reservoir.
Mikhel and Kadamovas were among 37 criminals whose death sentences Biden commuted to life without parole. Biden didn’t commute the sentences of three other men on federal death row convicted of mass murder and terrorism: Robert Bowers, convicted of the 2018 mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh; Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing; and Dylann Roof, convicted of the 2015 mass shooting at a Black church in Charleston, S.C.
“Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss,” Biden said in a statement. “I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.”
Mikhel and Kadamovas, Soviet-born immigrants, hatched the kidnapping plot while working at an aquarium store on Ventura Boulevard. They kidnapped five people over a four-month period starting in 2001.
They lured their victims with offers of business deals and demanded more than $5.5 million from the victims’ family members. They received more than $1 million in ransom but killed their victims by strangulation anyway.
The pair drove to the New Melones reservoir near Yosemite to dump the bodies.
Their victims were Nick Kharabadze, 29, of Woodland Hills; Alexander Umansky, 35, of Sherman Oaks; Rita Pekler, 39, of West Hollywood; George Safiev, 37, of Beverly Hills; and Meyer Muscatel, 58, of Sherman Oaks.
Once behind bars, Mikhel hatched several escape plans, including a scheme to use bolt cutters, a pepper shaker, a rake and fence cutters to break out of a detention center in San Bernardino and make a getaway with Kadamovas on motorcycles. But a letter that detailed the plot was found in a trash can by a guard and the plan was foiled.
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to expand the death penalty to “drug dealers and human traffickers.” During Trump’s first term, 13 inmates were put to death on federal death row, restarting federal executions after about 20 years.
During the end of his first term in office, Trump commuted the sentences of 70 people and pardoned 73 others, including former campaign and White House advisor Stephen K. Bannon, who was charged with federal fraud and money laundering in a scheme to defraud supporters of building a border wall with Mexico.
Politics
Biden vetoes bill that would have given Trump more judicial seats to fill
President Biden on Monday vetoed a bill that would have added 66 federal district judgeships over a span of more than a decade, a once-bipartisan effort designed so that neither political party would have an advantage in molding the federal judiciary.
Three presidential administrations, beginning with the incoming Trump administration, and six Congresses would have had the opportunity to appoint the new trial court judgeships, according to the legislation, which had support from organizations representing judges and attorneys.
Despite arguments from the organizations that additional judgeships would help with cases that have seen serious delays in resolution and ease concerns over access to justice, the White House said that Biden would veto the bill.
In a statement, Biden said he made his decision because the “hurried action” by the House of Representatives left open questions about “life-tenured” positions.
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“The House of Representative’s hurried action fails to resolve key questions in the legislation, especially regarding how the new judgeships are allocated, and neither the House of Representatives nor the Senate explored fully how the work of senior status judges and magistrate judges affects the need for new judgeships,” Biden said.
“The efficient and effective administration of justice requires that these questions about need and allocation be further studied and answered before we create permanent judgeships for life-tenured judges,” Biden added.
He said the bill would also have created new judgeships in states where senators have not filled existing judicial vacancies and that those efforts “suggest that concerns about judicial economy and caseload are not the true motivating force behind passage of this bill now.
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When Biden’s plan to veto the legislation surfaced earlier this month, Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told “America’s Newsroom” that the act is “the last spasm of a lame-duck.”
“President Biden and his team don’t want to allow it to become law simply because a Republican administration would get to appoint some of the judges,” Kennedy said.
“I wish they’d put the country first,” the senator added.
The legislation was passed unanimously in August under the Democratic-controlled Senate, though the Republican-led House brought the measure to the floor only after Donald Trump was reelected president in November, creating an air of political gamesmanship.
Biden’s veto essentially shelves the legislation for the current Congress.
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Overturning Biden’s veto would require a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, and the House vote fell well short of that margin.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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