BEVERLY HILLS — A Southern California woman said Tuesday that Rep. Eric Swalwell drugged and raped her in 2018, joining several other women who have come forward in recent days with allegations of sexual misconduct by the East Bay Democrat.
The woman, Lonna Drewes, made the announcement at a Tuesday news conference in Beverly Hills alongside her attorneys, Lisa Bloom and Arick Fudali, and said that she did not come forward at the time for fear that it would harm her budding political career.
Bloom said she planned to immediately file a police report with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, which has jurisdiction over criminal incidents in West Hollywood, where the alleged assault took place.
“Losing one’s job is not a sufficient consequence for these types of allegations,” Bloom said. “We will not rest until we get justice for Lonna.”
Swalwell and his lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Drewes’ allegations.
In 2018, Drewes said she met Swalwell on three occasions. He invited her to two public events, saying that he would help introduce her to people who could help with her fashion software company and interest in local politics. He was married at the time and his wife was pregnant, and Drewes said she was in a committed relationship. She saw herself and Swalwell as friends and said she was not interested in a sexual or romantic relationship with the congressman.
She believes Swalwell spiked her drink on the third occasion because she had only one glass of wine, but quickly became extremely intoxicated. Swalwell brought her to his hotel room where she says he assaulted her.
“He raped me and he choked me,” she said. “While he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died. I did not consent to any sexual activity.”
She is the fifth woman to come forward with accusations against Swalwell. The first told the Chronicle in an account published Friday that Swalwell assaulted her twice — once in 2019 when she was a 21-year-old staffer in his congressional office and again in 2024 after a gala in New York City. Hours after the Chronicle story published, CNN reported allegations from three more women, two who said Swalwell sent them unsolicited photos of his penis, and another who said he sexually assaulted her in 2025.
The announcement in Beverly Hills comes a day after Swalwell, a Democrat who represented the East Bay, said he would resign from Congress. On Sunday, he suspended his campaign for governor, a race in which he had been a frontrunner. He has generally denied the allegations, even as he has apologized for making “mistakes in judgment.”
“I will fight the serious, false allegations against me,” he wrote in a statement announcing his resignation. “However, I must take ownership for the mistakes I did make.”
The three alleged assaults detailed by the Chronicle and CNN follow the same pattern: the women said they agreed to get drinks with Swalwell but then became so intoxicated they do not remember or have only partial memories of what followed. In each case, they woke up later in Swalwell’s hotel room.