Windsor mayor resigns six weeks after Chronicle investigation detailing sexual assault

(Craig Barritt / Getty Images for American Express)

(WINDSOR, Calif.) Windsor Mayor Dominic Foppoli resigned last Friday amid a number of sexual assault allegations six weeks after The San Francisco Chronicle published an invetisgation detailing allegations by at least four women.

Since the initial report, an additional four women have come forward with allegations. Additionally, Foppoli's resignation came hours after The Chronicle reached out to him about a Palm Beach, Florida investigation regarding allegations made by Teen Mom star Farrah Abraham. Abraham is the ninth woman to come forward.

Prior to resignation, The Chronicle's reporting spurred a criminal investigation into the accusations by the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office and a recall push by Windsor residents.

According to The Chronicle, Abraham, 29, is a party to a report filed in Palm Beach, Florida April 2 of this year.

Foppoli has denied the most recent allegations by Abraham in a prepared statement, claiming that she "is making these allegations in an attempt to leverage the situation to her advantage."

This was disproven easily by The Chronicle who noted, as indicated above, that Abraham filed her police report three days before reporters approached Foppoli about the allegations, and six days before the story was published.

With his back against the wall politically, Foppoli turned to a lobbyist friend, Robert Stryk, to help quell allegations. Stryk was depicted by the Associated Press as "one of the most successful lobbyist of the Trump presidency." Stryk's work with the El Salvadoran intelligence agencies came under fire in February of this year when the country's president told the AP that they had backed away from a lobbying deal but it was revealed that Stryk continued collecting money on behalf of the country's intelligence services.

Foppoli tasked Stryk with saving his job as mayor and as part of the push, Stryk attacked Esther Lemus, a Windsor Town Council colleague and Sonoma County deputy district attorney. Lemus accused Foppoli of sexual assault in a report to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.

Part of Stryk's strategy, according to reporting by The Chronicle, was that he may release a "sex tape" of Lemus and one of Foppoli's captured on sureveillance camera at Foppoli's Northen California winery. Stryk called this the "nuclear option."

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