Mark Hanson, Bricoleur Vineyards owner, is accused of raping and abusing his younger sister over six-year period when they were kids

The owner of a Northern California winery has been accused of sexual assault by his younger sister.

Mark Hanson, 63, who runs the luxury Bricoleur Vineyards in Sonoma County, is accused of rape and incest over a six-year period in the 1970s by Hilary McKean – his younger sister, when they were both children – claiming the suspect strongly denies it and says it is an attempt to extort him.

McKean, 60, who is now a trauma consultant living in Montana, detailed the alleged abuse filed a lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court providing details examples of abuse, suffocation and forced masturbation.

She claims her brother also exhibited “strange behavior,” including “touching her feet with his hands and penis, and sucking on her toes against her will.”

The lawsuit was originally filed in March, but Hanson’s name remained sealed until last month, when a judge ruled he could be freely named as a defendant.

Hanson owns Bricoleur Vineyards with his wife Elizabeth and their daughter Sarah Hanson Citron.

His sister, McKean, claims the abuse started in 1971, when she was just eight years old. The family had moved to a new house where her bedroom and that of her brother were separated from their parents and younger sister.

Although the “public relationship” with her brother seemed normal as the pair played together, rode bikes and built forts with other children in the neighborhood, it was in the family home. McKean claims the trauma occurred.

McKean claims Hanson entered her room at night and abused her over a period of six years, until she was 14 years old and he was 17.

McKean and Hanson are half-siblings and share a biological mother.

In the lawsuit, McKean claims she suppressed her memories of the attacks, but they left psychological and physical scars, leaving her with severe anxiety, depression, nightmares and “tissue, muscle and organ damage and bruising.”

The lawsuit contains detailed claims, alleging that Hanson was raped, performed oral sex on her, forced her to masturbate and strangled his sister.

She says what started as alleged physical abuse evolved into “domination and control and violence mixed with sexuality,” according to the lawsuit.

McKean says she has pushed aside all memories of the attacks that resurfaced in 2022.

She is bringing the lawsuit under California law that allows victims of sexual assault to take legal action within five years of realizing harm has been done to them.

McKean claims her brother operated “with malice, oppression and fraud.” His conduct was despicable and occurred with a deliberate, knowing and knowing disregard for the rights and safety of his sister,” the complaint states.

“He deliberately concealed his malicious and oppressive behavior and threatened his sister. She was afraid he would kill her. His conduct was so despicable, base and despicable that it would be looked down upon and despised by reasonable people,” the lawsuit said.

McKean told the San Francisco Chronicle: “I think there’s a lot of pressure to maintain your family’s reputation and not talk about these things.

“I don’t really think it’s healthy for anyone to keep these secrets. It’s not healthy for me, and it’s not healthy in our society. We need to be able to talk about what happened to us.’

She claims: ‘I was terrified every night and wished he wouldn’t come into my bedroom.’

McKean claims the abuse didn’t stop until Hanson was in his senior year of high school and started dating a girl before eventually leaving home to attend college at Santa Clara University.

“I changed a lot when I was released,” she told the Chronicle.

In the intervening years, McKean worked in PR, married, had two children and later divorced.

She was “superficially friends” with her brother, but claims the memories suddenly returned in the spring of 2022.

“It was like a door opened and they came pouring out of a closet they had been locked in,” she claims.

“All the things I never let myself feel from early childhood… All those feelings came back and they multiplied over the years I never let myself feel those things. It took me a while to work through that. I am still on a healing journey.”

California law allows victims of sexual assault victims five years to pursue legal action, with the clock only starting “once the survivor understands what happened and understands and feels harmed by the behavior.”

McKean is seeking unspecified civil damages, citing symptoms including PTSD, depression, flashbacks, anxiety and loss of self-esteem.

By coming forward, she claims she wants to seek justice for her younger self and hopes her coming forward can help others process repressed trauma.

“In any way, if I speak my truth, even a little girl or a woman who is hiding repressed memories will come forward and speak, and then together we will change the system, because I think there is enormous pressure on women not to talk about these things,” she says. said.

‘I think we should be able to say what happened to us. That it should be allowed. And for some reason it doesn’t feel that way.”

Her brother, Hanson, has denied the allegations, saying they are “fabricated memories.”

“Hilary has fabricated and fabricated details for the sole purpose of portraying me in the most damaging way possible, in an attempt to extort a lot of money from me,” he said in a statement.

“While my daughter focuses on beating cancer, I am also busy running our shared family business in her absence. This speaks directly to my sister’s lack of character, compassion, and her motivation for money.

“It is difficult to believe that a person who led such a long and successful professional career as my sister Hilary, who often spoke about the empowerment of women, would have concealed events of the magnitude of these allegations for five decades.

“Fortunately, these fabricated ‘memories’ have ‘surfaced’ to take advantage of the state’s statute of limitations,” Hanson said, describing his sister as pursuing “unconventional” therapies for persistent mental health issues and mocking her self-portrait as a spiritual healer and clairvoyant.

On her own website, McKean describes herself as ‘an experienced intuitive coach, master Life Force Energy Healer and level aura reader’.

‘I understand the pain of being trapped in lies. I know how hard it is to come forward and be seen, when you are programmed to make everything look perfect, to fit in, to be like everyone else,” she wrote in her online biography.

Referring to his sister’s website, Hanon said, “She may have made up her false accusations in that appearance, but that’s all they are: made-up claims with no factual basis.”

“The allegations are false and painful for me and my family. I am convinced they will not survive in court. I will not allow her untruths to tarnish my good name and our family reputation.”