“I was not assaulted at all,” said Amber Renee Spurlock, 27, of Galveston.

“I can’t say this enough: This has all been a complete mistake.

“I’m in shock because none of what they said happened. That’s the truth.”

Spurlock, who described herself as a friend of Nelson’s, said she didn’t know why police arrested him in the Kroger parking lot in the 200 block of Gulf Freeway South and charged him with misdemeanor assault and public intoxication.

Spurlock also was arrested for public intoxication, and the two were taken to jail. As of Friday, they both had made bail.

A furious Nelson said Friday the charges are “100 percent nonsense.”

“I was not intoxicated and I didn’t touch her,” he said. “She was lost in League City and was crying and calling around to get someone to come help her.

“I had seen her earlier in the evening and I found her and told her I would take her home.”

At one point, Nelson said, the woman knocked his telephone out of his hand, and that is what the witnesses saw when they passed by.

Spurlock may have been intoxicated, and he wanted to help her get home, he said.

League City Police detective Bryan Campbell referred most questions to a written report about the incident issued by his department.

The report states a witness saw Nelson strike Spurlock in the parking lot. After investigating, the officers took the two into custody.

Campbell said misdemeanor assault is when an assailant causes pain but falls shy of inflicting serious bodily injury, which would be a felony.

The detective said the case had been submitted to the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office.

Joel Bennett, an assistant district attorney in that office, confirmed the charges had been received but were still under evaluation Friday.

Nelson said he had only one glass of wine that evening. He said Spurlock went back to the police department after they had been released and told officers he was innocent, but they declined to amend their report.

“They’re still going to let this be a black eye on me,” he said. “I guess they decided I was ‘intoxicated’ because I was upset for being arrested for doing nothing.”

Nelson said he was “upset and let down” by the way the police handled the situation. He said he wished the chief of police had gone to the jail to make sure a city councilman was actually intoxicated before charging him.

“If the police had done their work like they were supposed to, they could have waited until Ms. Spurlock came by in the morning before deciding to charge anyone,” he said. “Ms. Spurlock would have told them I did nothing. But they wanted to charge me right off the bat.”

Mayor Jerry Shults could not be reached to comment about the consequences such a charge might have for a council member.

A Class-A misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail, a $4,000 fine or both.