Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) may be regretting his investment in his friend’s vineyard right about now.
Alpha Omega Winery, primarily owned by the House Intelligence Committee chairman’s pal Robin Baggett and in which Nunes has partial ownership, has been caught up in a scandal involving a charity cruise on a luxury yacht, mounds of cocaine, and a group of sex workers , according to an expose in the Nunes’ hometown paper, The Fresno Bee.
The story begins in 2015 when Alene Anase, an employee of the winery, was assigned to serve the company’s wine on a San Francisco Bay cruise that had been auctioned off as a benefit for charity. The trip turned out to be so traumatic that Anase filed a lawsuit against her employer for subjecting her to the experience.
When the winery’s yacht was already sailing on the bay, Anase discovered that she was trapped on the ship with 25 men, described as all top investors in the vineyard, who were “openly using what appeared to be cocaine and ‘drawing straws’ for which sex worker to hire, according to the lawsuit.”
Unable to leave the ship, Anase testified that “she could hear sexual activity happening in the yacht’s bedrooms and witnessed men ‘fondling and suckling’ sex workers’ breasts — some who appeared to be ‘too young to consent.'”
Anase was there to serve wine, but at least one of the cruise attendees mistook her for one of the sex workers and propositioned her, asking if she would “provide services of a sexual nature.”
After calling into the winery to seek guidance on how to handle the situation given that she was unable to leave the boat mid-cruise, a supervisor told her make herself scarce to avoid harassment.
She managed to make it to the end of the cruise unscathed but was forced to witness when the guests “lined the prostitutes up on the deck of the yacht, reviewed out loud and in detail the sexual services performed and paid them in front of Plaintiff,” according to her deposition.
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