General Discussion

Five years later, the woman said, she attended an April 2024 charity gala where Swalwell was honored. The woman, who no longer worked for Swalwell, said they met for drinks afterward, during which she became so inebriated that she remembers only snippets of the night, including pushing Swalwell away and telling him, “No,” while he allegedly forced himself on her.

The woman texted a friend three days later that she was “sexually assaulted” by Swalwell. She wrote in a series of messages reviewed by the Chronicle that she had “blacked out” but “woke up once during it and even told him to stop at one point.”

“This happened one other time when I was working with him, but I convinced myself I was an equal party in it even though same pattern: I blacked out and he had sex with me,” she wrote, referring to the 2019 incident.

The Chronicle spoke with the friend and the woman’s then-boyfriend, whom she said she told about the alleged 2024 assault when she got home the next day. Both described her as still disoriented that morning, and her then-boyfriend said he encouraged her to report Swalwell to the police.