Here’s a New York Times article touting Jacob’s rise as a sign of the times. The progressive Democrat was touted as the country’s first “Marijuana Mayor”. You can see him addressing an Occupy Sebastopol rally here. But he did other things in his free time too.

When Robert Jacob ran for the City Council here last year, he had already made the list of “Forty Under 40 of 2012” in a local business magazine. So it was to be expected that his business gave him face recognition among voters on the campaign trail, many of whom greeted him by exclaiming, “You’re the pot guy!”

A founder of Sebastopol’s lone dispensary for medical marijuana, Peace in Medicine, and a strong advocate of its use, Mr. Jacob far outraised and outspent his rivals by running the most expensive campaign in Sebastopol’s history. He won and quickly became vice mayor but was not done.

This month, Mr. Jacob, 36, was chosen as mayor by the City Council — the first person from the medical marijuana industry to become mayor of an American city, according to cannabis advocates.

That it happened in Sebastopol, a city in Sonoma County that retains its hippie past despite the gentrification in recent years that has made it known more for its pinot noir than its traditional Gravenstein apples, was hardly a surprise.

Mr. Jacob is a relative newcomer. He grew up in Rodeo, in the East Bay, the son of immigrants, his father from Mexico and his mother from Iraq. He moved with his family to the Central Valley, but uncomfortable in the area’s conservative culture because he was gay, he said, at 15 he decamped to San Francisco, where he first lived in a homeless shelter for youths. In San Francisco, Mr. Jacob went to high school and also worked for several social services groups, helping victims of domestic violence and H.I.V.-positive youths.

Jacob is predictably a Democrat and touts his “progressive” credentials. His issues were diversity, the environment, and helping the disenfranchised.

And the end result is equally predictable.

Cannabis entrepreneur and former Sebastopol Mayor Robert Jacob was arrested Saturday morning on suspicion of lewd acts and forcible penetration of a child aged 14 or 15, as well as a range of other sexual crimes involving a minor or minors.

Sebastopol Police Chief Kevin Kilgore confirmed the arrest of the former mayor by phone Saturday afternoon and released a statement with initial information about the allegations

Jacob, 44, was arrested about 7 a.m. Saturday. Police said they contacted Jacob in the 7400 block of Woodland Avenue and took him into custody on an arrest warrant outlining several felony sexual assault crimes against a minor.

Progressives do what they do. Sometimes they’re even arrested for it.