SONOMA COUNTY, CA — Seven weeks of testimony focused on about politics, winery gatherings, alcohol, and encounters with women that former Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli called consensual.
On Friday, a jury awarded the seven women who pursued the case against Foppoli more than $13 million.
A Sonoma County jury unanimously found former Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli liable for sexually assaulting seven women.
The compensation includes $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.
The verdicts awarded damages for economic losses, including therapy, medical expenses, and lost earnings, as well as noneconomic harm. Jurors also made findings under several legal claims, including two civil protections.
The Bane Act protects people from threats, intimidation, or coercion that interfere with their legal rights, while the Ralph Act prohibits violence or threats motivated by protected characteristics, including sex.
The awards against Foppoli totaled $13,060,267. Jurors separately awarded Jane Doe No. 4 $2 million from the Santa Rosa chapter of Active 20-30.
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.
Active 20-30 began handing over financial documents to the court on Friday. On Tuesday, jurors will return to the Santa Rosa civil courthouse to begin the punitive stage of the trial.
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.
Foppoli also faces separate lawsuits including one filed by reality television personality Farrah Abraham. She is accusing Foppoli of drugging and raping her at a friend's home in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2021, The Press Democrat reported.
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.
The women met Foppoli — once called the "prince of the Wine Country" — 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 is still part owner of 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.
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.
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