‘He raped me,’ the victim, Lonna Drewes, said at Beverly Hills press conference Tuesday morning where she was flanked by attorneys
Embattled California Congressman Eric Swalwell is facing a new allegation that he drugged and violently raped a woman in 2018, an attack that took place in his home state.
“He raped me, and he choked me. And while he was choking me, I lost consciousness,” the woman, Lonna Drewes, said Tuesday at a press conference in Beverly Hills where she was flanked by her attorneys. “I thought I died.”
Drewes said the lawmaker offered her “connections to further my software company,” which led to a friendly relationship. They met a couple of times and then, on their third encounter, she says, Swalwell “drugged my drink.”
That night, she said, he lured her to his hotel room by telling her he needed to get some paperwork before they went to a political event. By the time she got there, she said she had lost mobility, and Swalwell then raped and choked her. Drewes said she did not go to the police but instead recorded the purported attack in her “handwritten calendar,” adding that “the assault and its impact were later documented during my therapy sessions at a sexual assault center in Connecticut.”
The new allegations come a day after Swalwell announced he was stepping down from his seat in the House. Over the weekend, a cascade of allegations about inappropriate sexual advances from former staffers forced him out of the race to succeed Gavin Newsom.