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Groper cops plea, facing 15 years

A Cotati man who has been in jail for the past three-and-a-half years after being charged with sexually assaulting women, could be spending another 15-plus years in prison after pleading no contest to three felony counts on Thursday.

A no contest plea is essentially a guilty plea.

When Thomas Boccaleoni, 47, of Cotati, entered the pleas he was convicted of three felony sexual assault charges. Additionally, he admitted that he had a prior strike conviction for a 2005 residential burglary. Under the terms of the plea, Boccaleoni agreed to a stipulated prison term of 15 years, 8 months. He must serve 85 percent of his term before being eligible for parole.

The charges involved three women who were pulled over on separate occasions by a car flashing headlights on rural roads in Sonoma County and then sexually assaulted. The acts occurred between November 2008 and April 2009, and each charge on which he has been convicted represents an offense against a different victim. In all three cases, the women were followed by a vehicle flashing its headlights while following behind them on rural Bennett Valley Road and Calistoga Road, and on Bodega Highway west of Sebastopol. In each of the three cases, the women pulled their cars over and were eventually sexually assaulted. Two of the victims were able to identify Boccaleoni as the man who assaulted them. DNA evidence linked Boccaleoni to the third victim.

District Attorney Jill Ravitch said, “We are pleased that DNA evidence allowed law enforcement to catch this sexual predator so that we could bring him to justice before he could harm any other women.”

Boccaleoni will be sentenced on Nov. 7, in Department 10 at 8:30 a.m.