The question of how to handle allegations of sexual assault against former Rep. Eric Swalwell that extend into the East Bay has become a contentious issue in the race for Alameda County district attorney.

At a press conference in Oakland on Thursday, DA Ursula Jones Dickson outlined her office’s approach to the Swalwell matter and sex crimes more generally. She also spoke to criticisms from her main opponent in the June primary election, Pamela Price. 

California’s 14th Congressional District, which Swalwell represented for more than 12 years until his resignation on April 14, falls entirely within Alameda County, the DA’s jurisdiction. Jones Dickson said her office is reviewing allegations and information to determine whether Swalwell committed any crimes in Alameda County and whether any charges could be filed.

Since news of the allegations against Swalwell surfaced on April 10, Price, in several newsletters, has leaned into the message that she is the only candidate willing to go after high-profile figures like him. 

“We need a DA that has the knowledge, experience, and moral courage to hold sexual predators accountable,” she wrote in a recent email to supporters. “The allegations against Eric Swalwell deserve to be pursued as vigorously as the person who shoplifts at Walmart.”

News that Jones Dickson is looking into potential local connections to the Swalwell allegations first surfaced last week when she told the East Bay Times the DA’s office would “review and assess all available information to determine what further action can be taken.”

Before he was elected to the House in 2013, Swalwell was a member of the Dublin City Council, and before that, from 2006 to 2012, he was a prosecutor in the Alameda County DA’s office. 

Jones Dickson said her team hasn’t been contacted by anyone with allegations involving Swalwell in Alameda County. But according to the San Francisco Chronicle, one of the women to come forward said she met Swalwell at a Pleasanton steakhouse in 2019 — in the Alameda County DA’s jurisdiction — not long after she was hired at his district office at age 21. She said that Swalwell bought her alcohol and that she had no memory of leaving the restaurant. She said she woke up the next morning in his hotel room naked, feeling she had been sexually assaulted while she was too intoxicated to consent, events she recounted to friends a few years later. Swalwell has called the claim “false,” and his attorney sent the woman a cease-and-desist letter, the Chronicle reported.

Today, the DA issued a message of support to women who have been victims, including any who might have information about Swalwell.

“If you’ve been the victim of sexual assault and you’re ready to tell your story, please reach out to law enforcement or this district attorney’s office,” she said. “We are actively involved in trying to figure out if there are any victims who can come forward.”

Jones Dickson also struck a cautious note in her address to survivors: “I want you to know your rights because they’re paramount to public interest and anything political,” she said. “No one has the right to force you to do anything.”

She said no one has the right to compel sexual assault survivors to testify or otherwise participate in any investigation, adding that the law requires they be treated with dignity and respect. Survivors, she said, can ask law enforcement to keep their identities confidential. And she listed off resources available to survivors, including through the county’s Family Justice Center.

Jones Dickson declined to provide specifics about her team’s review of the Swalwell allegations. “I don’t have thoughts on open investigations,” she said in response to a question. “When prosecutors do that, they find themselves recused and unable to do the work on behalf of victims.”

Price called Swalwell a predator, claimed Jones Dickson has a conflict of interest

Price held a press conference of her own in Hayward yesterday, where she also urged potential Swalwell victims to come forward and took aim at Jones Dickson, accusing the DA of being unable to fairly investigate.

“A full week ago, I called on District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson to acknowledge the conflict of interest and immediately refer her investigation of Eric Swalwell’s sexual misconduct to the California Attorney General Rob Bonta,” she said. “That has not happened. We have heard nothing from our interim district attorney for a week.”

Jones Dickson and Swalwell overlapped as prosecutors in the DA’s office from 2006 to 2012. There’s no public evidence that the two were close while they worked in the DA’s office, but Jones Dickson had endorsed Swalwell’s campaign for governor last year, a favor Swalwell returned by endorsing Jones Dickson for DA. Swalwell’s congressional campaign committee also made a $1,000 contribution to Jones Dickson’s campaign in December.

On April 11, the day after news about Swalwell broke, Jones Dickson wrote in a social media post that she was “deeply troubled” by the allegations and was rescinding her endorsement of him and declining his.

“I don’t have a conflict,” Jones Dickson told reporters today. She did not address the $1,000 donation.

Price, who was recalled by voters in 2024, announced a new hotline yesterday and urged Swalwell victims to come forward.

Jones Dickson said Price’s hotline is a bad idea.

“That is not a law enforcement hotline. So making a call to that hotline doesn’t mean that you’re making a call to law enforcement,” she said. “That information is not confidential.”

Swalwell was a major critic of Price during the 2024 recall election. That October, Swalwell appeared alongside the recall organizers and accused Price of putting in place “pro-criminal policies,” ridiculing her policy of not always charging people with enhancements in gun cases.

Price responded at the time by saying Swalwell may have been trying to protect himself and other prosecutors who may have engaged in unethical practices in the DA’s office. Swalwell fired back, threatening to file a defamation lawsuit against Price. He never did.

In an April 16 newsletter, Price called Swalwell a “sexual predator.”

“Eric Swalwell clearly knew in 2024 that if Alameda County had an independent District Attorney with a history of boldly standing up for women, he would have a problem,” she wrote.

Jones Dickson said today, in response to a question from The Oaklandside, that she has no information right now that Swalwell committed any crimes while he was employed as a deputy district attorney in the late 2000s, but that’s part of why her team is conducting a review right now.

“I think the thing that bothers me most about these allegations,” Jones Dickson said about Swalwell, “is the number of people that said, ‘We knew something was going on.’ But who said anything? Nobody.”

“Why didn’t you say anything? That is the culture we have to break.”

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