New accuser says Rep. Eric Swalwell sexually assaulted her

By Casey Tolan, Allison Gordon, Kyung Lah, CNN

(CNN) — A woman on Tuesday accused Rep. Eric Swalwell of sexually assaulting her, saying at a news conference that the congressman raped her in 2018 at a Los Angeles-area hotel.

Lonna Drewes and her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, said they planned to report the assault to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Bloom declined to share detailed corroboration of Drewes’ claims, which CNN could not independently verify, saying that evidence would be shared with law enforcement authorities first.

Swalwell, who represented a San Francisco Bay Area congressional seat, was a leading Democratic candidate for California governor until CNN and the San Francisco Chronicle published stories Friday documenting claims of sexual misconduct against him.

In the following days, Swalwell dropped out of the governor’s race and resigned his congressional seat. He has denied that he ever had nonconsensual sex and said he would fight those allegations, but apologized to his family and constituents for “mistakes in judgment.”

Sara Azari, a lawyer for Swalwell, said in a statement Tuesday that “Swalwell categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation of sexual misconduct and assault that has been leveled against him.”

A former staffer for Swalwell previously told CNN that the congressman raped her in 2024, and several years earlier had nonconsensual sexual contact with her while she was heavily intoxicated. Multiple other women have told CNN that Swalwell sent them unsolicited nude photos of himself and other sexually explicit messages.

Drewes, who was working as a model and an entrepreneur at the time, said she met Swalwell socially in 2018, and that he offered to connect her with Silicon Valley investors who could support the fashion company she owned. Drewes said she was considering running for the Beverly Hills City Council, and the two also talked about politics.

On the third occasion they met, Drewes said she believed that Swalwell “drugged my drink.”

She said that she and Swalwell were supposed to go to a political event together, but he said he needed to go to his hotel room to get paperwork.

“When I arrived at his hotel room, I was already incapacitated, and I couldn’t move my arms from my body,” she said. “He raped me and he choked me, and while he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died.”

Drewes said that she did not report the alleged assault to police or receive a rape kit at the time it occurred, but added that “I disclosed the assault to the people closest to me.”

“My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt,” she said, adding, “I have never doubted what happened.”

In an interview with CNN after her news conference, Drewes described her memory of the alleged assault, but her lawyers told her not to share details including the exact date of the incident or the names of people she told about it because they preferred to give that information to law enforcement first.

Drewes told CNN she decided to speak out to support other women who had come forward to accuse Swalwell of misconduct.

“My motivation was for other girls,” she said. “For a long while I’ve wanted to say something. When I knew he was running for governor, I was like, ‘Oh god, this can’t happen.’”

CNN’s Curt Devine, Pamela Brown and Yahya Abou-Ghazala contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.