Dominic Foppoli, now the former Democrat mayor of Windsor, California, resigned last week following accusations of sexual assault from several women, including Teen Mom star Farrah Abraham.
“It is with a heavy heart that I am resigning, effective today,” he said in a statement, maintaining that he did “not engage in any non-consensual sexual acts with any woman.”
“I recently learned that a woman in Palm Beach, Florida, is accusing me of non-consensual acts while I was visiting there in March of this year,” Foppoli’s statement continued, seemingly attributing the accusations to an April 8, 2021 story in the San Francisco Chronicle.
“She made her allegations after she learned of the April 8, 2021 San Francisco Chronicle story. I have no doubt she is making these allegations in an attempt to leverage the situation to her advantage,” he said.
Nine women have accused Foppoli of sexual assault, including Farrah Abraham. The April 8 San Francisco Chronicle story details accusations from four women, one of whom said the former mayor once “grabbed her, forcibly kissed her and groped her buttocks while pinning her body against his own,” refusing to stop:
[Rose] Fumoso is one of four women who have told The Chronicle that Foppoli isolated and sexually assaulted them after nights of drinking. Reporters interviewed friends or family members who either witnessed some of the events recounted by the women or said the women had confided in them shortly after the alleged assaults.
The article details other alleged incidents over the years, with one woman, who dated Foppoli as an 18-year old campaign volunteer. According to the Chronicle, “amid their breakup” in 2003, Foppoli “pressured her to drink alcohol for the first time before raping her twice at a house party.”
Other alleged incidents include:
In 2006, Sophia Williams split a cab with Foppoli after drinking at a nightclub with friends from a junior college dance class. She said she was surprised when the driver dropped them off at Foppoli’s house instead of taking her home, but that Foppoli offered her his bed, saying he would sleep on the couch. Instead, she said, Foppoli got into the bed, thrust his groin against her buttocks and tried to remove her pants as she told him, “No.” To escape, she said, she locked herself in his bathroom for hours before fleeing the home early the next morning.
In 2012, Allison Britton attended a conference in Reno for a civic club to which Foppoli also belongs. After hours of drinking alcohol, Britton said she became extremely and visibly inebriated, prompting a friend to suggest Foppoli walk Britton back to her hotel room. He instead brought Britton to his room, she said, and served her more alcohol. She said he then engaged in oral copulation with her when she was too intoxicated to consent and nearly unconscious.
Given his statement, Foppoli believes Abraham’s accusations — that he sexually assaulted her in March during a visit to Palm Beach — are driven by the San Francisco Chronicle’s investigation. However, according to the Chronicle, she filed the report on April 2, six days prior to the April 8 article specifically cited by the former mayor.
West Palm Beach attorney Spencer Kuvin, who is representing Abraham, said she presented a “very series” accusation and provided “physical proof” of her allegations.
“This is not a ‘he said, she said’ situation. She has physical proof,” Kuvin told the outlet. “We believe it is in felony territory.”
Foppoli ultimately said he is resigning because he does “not want undue national attention to have a negative impact on the Windsor community because of lawful, but poor choices, I have made in the recent past.”
