Jury finds Niner Winery owner not guilty of sexual harassment

Jurors say they found neither side’s story about alleged sexual advances to be completely credible

tool goes here After deliberating less than a day, a San Luis Obispo County jury on Tuesday found a Paso Robles winery owner not guilty of sexually harassing a former employee of his company.

Tammi Herron, a part-time hand model and 44-year-old single mother of two, alleged her former boss, Dick Niner, had made unwanted sexual advances toward her while she was working as a sales representative for his Niner Wine Estates company in 2007.

Niner denied the charges, calling her allegations “fiction.”

Herron also accused Niner’s company of creating a hostile workplace because Niner’s wife, Pam, did not like her and was trying to get rid of her.

But the jury dismissed those allegations as well.

Attorneys on each side sought to find inconsistencies in the “he said-she said” case to persuade the jurors to believe their cients.

In the end, the jury found neither party’s story about what happened to be completely credible, according to two jurors, Kelley Day, 39, of Arroyo Grande, and Bettina Evans, 52, of Shell Beach, who spoke to The Tribune after the verdict was read.

Several jurors on the 12-member panel were convinced that Niner had tried to woo Herron and kissed her in her car, as she claimed, Day and Evans said. However, the jurors could not find him guilty according to the requirements of the law, which stated in part that Niner’s actions had harmed Herron either personally or in the workplace.

“There wasn’t any true innocence here on either side. I believed she lured him with her neediness…feeding his ego for a year and a half — it was her persona,” Evans said. “It was also quite probable there was a kiss.”

Niner appeared to be “denying too much, which led us to believe there was something to deny,” she said. “I believe he was smitten. ... But his actions were not that devastating to her. The degree of harm and damage wasn’t there. Her life was not destroyed.”

Day, who was the jury foreman, added, “There was a lot of debate on how much his advances were actually ‘unwanted.’ … No one had a whole lot of sympathy for her. We felt she worked the situation.

“But let’s say she didn’t want the kiss. They continued an amiable relationship (after the alleged incident). They had civil conversations and she invited him later that week on a ride-along. It was not severe or pervasive enough for her to quit her job.”

Herron’s argument that working at Niner Wine Estates was creating unreasonable demands on her at Pam Niner’s bidding also did not fly, Evans said.

“No one felt she was being pushed out. What was being asked of her was reasonable; this is what she agreed to do as her job,” Day said.

“We looked at the evidence,” Evans said. “What it came down to was the law was not in her favor.”