Former Sebastopol mayor Robert Jacob was arrested on Saturday morning on charges of five counts of felony criminal mischief and one count of sexual assault on a minor, police said.
Jacob’s arrest came just over a week after authorities received ‘information about possible sexual assault’ in the city of Sonoma County on March 30, between December 2019 and March 2021, according to a statement from police in Sebastopol.
“After further investigation, the suspect was identified as Robert Jacob,” the statement read. Prison records were kept late Saturday afternoon at Sonoma County Adult Conservation Center. Police said no bail was imposed.
Sebastopol police chief Kevin Kilgore told The Chronicle that Jacob was the former mayor of Sebastopol, and that “from now on the charges are linked to one victim.”
A LinkedIn page under Jacob’s name states that he is the head of Robert Jacob Executive Consulting, which provides consulting services for cannabis businesses. Surveys by the Secretary of State mention him as president and secretary of a marijuana company called Responsible Patient Care Inc., which is identified in news reports as Peace in Medicine. In 2015, the company merged its two Sonoma County stores with Sparc, a well-known pharmacy in San Francisco. In state-owned enterprises, Spich’s founder, Erich Pearson, is now listed as CEO of Responsible Patient Care.
Pearson did not immediately send a call and text to comment. A call to Jacob’s cell phone is to voicemail.
Officers arrested Jacob on a warrant on the 7400 block of Woodland Avenue at 7 a.m. Saturday, police said. The alleged offenses include: making a child under the age of 16 available to another person for a heinous or unintentional act, committing such an act with a 14- or 15-year-old child, spreading harmful matters that ‘ depicting a minor acting sexually, arranging a meeting with a minor for exposing genitals or rectal area, and participating in sexual penetration of a child under 16, police said.
The investigation is continuing, Kilgore said. “We will continue to see if we have more victims, and we will encourage anyone who has information to please reach out to us,” he said. “It is important to note that these are all sexual assaults on a minor.” The police contact number is 707-829-4400.
News accounts characterized Jacob’s election to the 2012 city council, which elected the mayor, as notable for being a marijuana businessman, the founder of a medical marijuana pharmacy. He spent too much on competitors by winning the most expensive campaign in city history, reports the New York Times.
Jacob Slayter, a member of the city council, served one term, which had a leave of absence of at least six months to deal with a family illness. He did not call for re-election.
Lauren Hernández and Rachel Swan are writers of San Francisco Chronicle staff. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ByLHernandez Email: [email protected], Twitter: @rachelswan