A well-known California winery owner has been accused of raping and sexually assaulting his younger sister over a period of six years while the siblings were young in a lawsuit she filed against him.
Hilary McKean, 60, is suing her brother Mark Hanson, 63, for the alleged history of repeated abuse while the siblings were growing up together in the 1970s.
McKean recently remembered the many instances of her half-brother — the owner of Bricoleur Vineyards in Sonoma County — allegedly coming into her bedroom at night and repeatedly assaulting her over a period when she was 8 to 14 years old after repressing the memories all those years, according to the suit.
California’s statute of limitations allows alleged victims of sexual assault to bring cases to court within five years of the date that the victim realizes they were abused and suffered psychological damages.
McKean, who lives in Montana, is seeking unspecified damages for the struggles she has faced as a result of the alleged assaults — including developing depression and PTSD.
She is also seeking a jury trial, according to the lawsuit.
She said the alleged abuse began when the family moved to a new house where she and her brother’s bedrooms were close together but far from their parent’s room.
She accused Hanson of an “onslaught of reoccurring violent sexual abuse and rape that was multi-faceted” and included unwanted sexual intercourse, penetration, oral sex, forced masturbation and choking as well as foot-fetish kinks against her will.
The repressed memories came flooding back to McKean in spring 2022, according to the suit. She was writing a memoir at the time, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
“I think there’s a lot of pressure to preserve your family reputation and not talk about these things,”
McKean told the local newspaper. “I don’t really think that holding on to these secrets is healthy for anyone. It’s not healthy for me, and it’s not healthy inside our society. We have to be able to talk about what happened to us.”
Hanson has denied the allegations and accused his sister of fabricating the whole thing for money, he said through his attorney to the Chronicle.
“Hilary has fabricated and invented details with the sole intention of portraying me in the most
damaging way in an attempt to extort significant money from me,” he said.
Hanson’s attorney could not immediately be reached by The Post.
If you have been sexually assaulted and live in New York, you can call 1-800-942-6906 for free and confidential crisis counseling. If you live outside the state, you can dial the 24/7 National Sexual Assault hotline at 1-800-656-4673.
