SONOMA COUNTY, CA — A Sonoma County jury unanimously found former Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli liable for sexually assaulting seven women and ordered him to pay upwards of $13 million.
The compensation include $4.6 million for one of the women, a former deputy Sonoma County district attorney and and Windsor councilwoman, the largest amount awarded to an individual plaintiff.
Jurors also found the Santa Rosa chapter of the Active 20-30 Club, a social organization to which Foppoli belonged, liable for one of the assaults. The jury ordered the club to pay $2 million in compensatory damages.
Jurors will return Tuesday to determine whether Foppoli and the club must also pay punitive damages.
All 12 jurors agreed on the verdict after deliberating for more than a week, although California civil trials require agreement from only nine jurors.
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The verdict is a result of a civil case that brought seven women into a Sonoma County courtroom to ask jurors to hold Foppoli financially responsible for alleged rapes, sexual assaults, unwanted touching, emotional abuse, and retaliation between 2001 and 2020.
The plaintiffs sued as Jane Does to protect their identities. They included a former girlfriend, a campaign worker, political colleagues, winery guests, and women who knew Foppoli through social and civic organizations.
The women sought compensatory damages for emotional distress, therapy, lost income, and other alleged harm. They also asked jurors to award punitive damages intended to punish Foppoli for conduct they described as malicious, oppressive, or fraudulent.
Foppoli denied assaulting any of the women. He testified that some of the alleged encounters never happened and that others involved consensual sex, flirtation, or romantic relationships that the women later recast as assaults.
His attorney, Andrew Watters, urged jurors to judge each woman's allegations separately and argued that the plaintiffs had not proved their claims.
The Sonoma County Sheriff's Office opened a criminal investigation after women publicly accused Foppoli of sexual misconduct in 2021. The investigation later moved to the California Attorney General's Office because one accuser, Jane Doe 7, Esther Lemus, previously worked as a Sonoma County deputy district attorney.
Prosecutors ultimately declined to file criminal charges, citing insufficient evidence involving allegations that remained within the statute of limitations.
The seven women pursued the civil case independently of that decision. Their lawsuit, filed in Sonoma County Superior Court on April 4, 2022, accused Foppoli of sexual assault, negligence, gender violence, civil rights violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and other wrongdoing.
Civil plaintiffs must prove their allegations by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning they must show their claims are more likely true than not. Nine of the 12 jurors must agree to return a civil verdict.
Criminal prosecutors faced the substantially higher burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The women met Foppoli at different times and through different parts of his public, business, and social life.
Some knew him through his political campaigns or their work in local government. Others met him through Christopher Creek Winery or Active 20-30, a civic organization for adults ages 20 to 39 that raises money for charitable causes.
Their allegations involved dates, parties, political activities, winery events, and a civic-club convention. Several women said alcohol or suspected drugging left them unable to consent. Others said Foppoli ignored their objections, restrained them, or continued sexual contact after they said no.
According to the lawsuit and testimony:
The plaintiffs' attorney, Traci Carrillo, argued that the separate accounts revealed a pattern. She said Foppoli used his political standing, winery ownership, access to alcohol, and influence in Active 20-30 to isolate women and cross their sexual boundaries.
The women testified that trauma, shame, self-blame, fear of retaliation, and Foppoli's prominence in Sonoma County discouraged them from immediately reporting what happened.
Carrillo also argued that changing public awareness following the #MeToo movement helped some plaintiffs recognize experiences within dating relationships, or while intoxicated, as sexual assault.
Challenging Their Accounts
Foppoli denied the allegations throughout the trial.
He described encounters that the women called frightening or abusive as consensual, romantic, "flirty," or "sweet," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Foppoli said the women had manipulated or exaggerated consensual encounters years later. He suggested that some accusers targeted him because they viewed him as wealthy or politically powerful.
His defense questioned why some plaintiffs remained friends with Foppoli, continued working with him, maintained romantic relationships with him, or supported his political career after the alleged assaults.
Watters also argued that alcohol consumption did not automatically prevent the women from consenting. He urged jurors not to treat one woman's allegations as proof that another woman's allegations were true.
During testimony, Carrillo confronted Foppoli with messages that referred to "roofies," giving women wine, and "hunting" for women. Foppoli characterized the exchanges as jokes, exaggerated banter, or "locker room talk," according to the Chronicle.
Carrillo had opened the trial by quoting messages she attributed to Foppoli, including, "When a woman says no, she really means yes," and, "You don't need roofies if you give them enough wine."
She told jurors those messages reflected the same attitudes the women described in their testimony.
The lawsuit also accused Foppoli and Republican political consultant Robert Stryk of trying to intimidate or discredit women after the allegations became public.
Carrillo cited a WhatsApp message in which she said Stryk boasted about trying to get under the skin of Jane Doe No. 7.
The complaint alleges that Stryk threatened to release embarrassing information and intimate recordings involving at least two women who publicly accused Foppoli.
Carrillo characterized the effort as a "scorched earth" campaign designed to punish accusers and deter other women from coming forward. She also cited communications that referred to using a "Trump playbook" against the women.
Foppoli testified that Stryk acted independently while Foppoli was emotionally unprepared to manage the public crisis.
The lawsuit originally named Christopher Creek Winery and Active 20-30 organizations as defendants, alleging that they enabled Foppoli or failed to act on warnings about his conduct.
Christopher Creek Winery and the national Active 20-30 organization reached confidential settlements before the verdict, according to the Chronicle. The Santa Rosa Active 20-30 chapter remained a defendant at trial.
Carrillo argued that Active 20-30 leaders learned of complaints about Foppoli years before the allegations became public but failed to investigate adequately or remove him.
An attorney for the Santa Rosa chapter argued that the local organization could not be held responsible for conduct that allegedly occurred during a national convention in Reno.
The attorney said local officers lacked authority over national events and acted appropriately after learning of the accusations. Active 20-30 expelled Foppoli after the allegations became public in 2021.
The chapter's attorney also argued that information known by individual members should not automatically count as knowledge held by the organization.
The accusations against Foppoli became public after the San Francisco Chronicle published an investigation on April 8, 2021.
Four women told the newspaper that Foppoli isolated and sexually assaulted them following nights of drinking. The Chronicle interviewed friends and relatives who witnessed parts of the events or said the women confided in them shortly afterward.
The newspaper also reviewed social media messages, journal entries, public records, and other documents that it said supported, or were consistent with, the women's accounts.
One woman told the Chronicle that Foppoli raped her twice after pressuring her to drink alcohol during a New Year's Eve gathering in 2003. She was 18 and had volunteered for his California State Assembly campaign.
Sophia Williams told the Chronicle that Foppoli assaulted her at his Windsor home in 2006 after they shared a cab following a night out. She said she escaped by locking herself in his bathroom and fled the house around dawn.
Allison Britton told the newspaper that Foppoli assaulted her in a Reno hotel room during a 2012 Active 20-30 convention when she was too intoxicated to consent.
Rose Fumoso, a 21-year-old winery intern from France, told the Chronicle that Foppoli drove her away from a 2019 harvest party at Christopher Creek Winery. She said he took her to an unfamiliar house, pinned her against him, forcibly kissed her, and groped her despite repeated objections.
The Chronicle also obtained a 2017 complaint sent to Windsor officials. A former Christopher Creek Winery guesthouse tenant accused Foppoli of displaying a "predatory nature" and engaging in an "abuse of power," the newspaper reported.
The newspaper's original investigation eventually grew to include allegations from 13 women.
Foppoli had lived in Windsor since 1987 and built careers in local politics and the wine business.
He became Windsor's youngest council member in 2014. The Town Council appointed him mayor in 2018, and voters elected him to the position in 2020.
Foppoli also co-founded or owned Foppoli Wines, Benevolo Wines, Old Redwood Brewing Company, and Christopher Creek Winery.
His public profile extended beyond Windsor. He held a leadership position within the League of California Cities and won an appointment to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District board.
Foppoli appeared on Steve Harvey's television show in 2015, and a 2018 CBS special called him the "prince of the Wine Country," according to the Chronicle.
Foppoli called the allegations "baseless and manufactured." He told The Press Democrat that he was not a rapist and had never pressured a woman for sex.
Hours after the Chronicle published its investigation, elected officials across Sonoma County demanded that he leave office.
In an April 8, 2021, letter, the mayors of Sonoma County's eight other cities and towns demanded Foppoli's resignation "in response to the credibility and significance of the allegations."
State and congressional representatives also called for him to step down, according to reports.
Foppoli resigned as mayor in May 2021. He was also removed from the family wine business, according to a news report.
Reality television personality Farrah Abraham filed a separate lawsuit accusing Foppoli of drugging and raping her at a friend's home in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2021, The Press Democrat reported.
Abraham's attorneys told the newspaper that she blacked out after sipping an old-fashioned cocktail that Foppoli gave her.
Foppoli's wine company also settled a separate lawsuit filed by a Montana woman who said Foppoli raped her multiple times in 2020 when she was 18, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
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