Woman says in lawsuit that she’s a victim of 3 men Rep. Mace accused of sex crimes

A woman says in a civil lawsuit filed Thursday that she was a victim of three of the men U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace accused in a stunning speech on the U.S. House floor of being sexual predators.

The lawsuit says the woman, identified as Jane Doe, was sexually assaulted by one of the men in a Sullivan’s Island home while she was unconscious as the other two filmed it and took photos. She suspects she was drugged.

The woman says she is the victim Mace referenced during her nearly hour-long floor speech in February, when she said, “I had to tell a woman she’d been raped.” Until Mace contacted her in April 2024, she had no idea what happened that night in October 2018, according to the lawsuit.

Video of the assault was among the thousands of images the 1st District congresswoman said she found on her then-fiancé’s cellphone in November 2023 before breaking up with him, according to the lawsuit.

Mace says she turned all of it over to the State Law Enforcement Division, which confirmed in February that it began investigating her ex-fiancé in December 2023 after receiving a call from U.S. Capitol Police.

During a news conference Thursday at her congressional office on Daniel Island, Mace read from the lawsuit and applauded the woman’s “strength in coming forward.”

“I told her the truth. It was one of the hardest conversations of my life,” Mace told reporters about notifying her of what she found. “I will stand with her under oath every step of the way.”

No criminal charges have been filed against any of the men for the accusations laid out in graphic detail in the lawsuit. It seeks unspecified damages for claims that include battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation, negligence and conspiracy.

Asked why she believed there hadn’t been any charges filed yet, Marybeth Mullaney, the woman’s attorney, said she couldn’t answer for SLED.

A SLED spokeswoman said Thursday the investigation continues.

The lawsuit says an anonymous witness, identified as Jane Doe Witness, saw the crime happening from security cameras in the home. That video footage was deleted the next day, but the witness says she wrote about it that night in an online diary entry she emailed to herself hours later. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” reads an excerpt from that entry, according to the lawsuit.

Mace said she found the video on her fiancé’s phone five years later after the two went to couple’s counseling with two pastors, who suggested he needed to give Mace access to his phone “to build trust.” And he did.

According to the lawsuit, Mace went to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in December 2023, and they asked SLED to investigate. A month later, Mace contacted the unnamed witness, thinking it might be her in the video. It wasn’t, but the witness said she remembered what happened and told Mace about the diary entry.

The lawsuit names Patrick Bryant (Mace’s ex-fiancé), Eric Bowman, and John Osborne, all residents of Charleston County and longtime friends and business associates. Not mentioned in the suit is a fourth man Mace named from the House floor, another friend of Bryant’s who has since sued her in federal court for defamation. All four have vehemently and repeatedly denied Mace’s allegations since February.

Bowman and Bryant immediately denied the additional claims in the lawsuit, labeling it the latest in Mace’s political drama.

“This lawsuit is nothing more than a political stunt,” said Bowman, adding that his estranged wife and Mace have a “coordinated vendetta against him.”

“Their agenda is personal, not principled and the allegations are 100% false,” he said.

Osborne declined to comment and directed questions to his attorney, Ryan Schwartz, who pointed the SC Daily Gazette to a deposition obtained by news outlets last week. Schwartz called it “very telling.”

In an April 28 deposition given under subpoena, campaign consultant Wesley Donehue said Mace asked him in late 2023 to meet with Bryant and use the information she found as leverage to get full ownership in two homes the former couple owned together: one on the Isle of Palms and another in Washington, D.C.

She said she would try to get more information from Bryant’s phone during an upcoming trip to the Caribbean with him and his friends. Donehue said he refused and told her to go to authorities, according to The Post and Courier and other outlets.

In a statement to the Gazette, Mace downplayed the alleged blackmail attempt as “deposition clickbait.”

The lawsuit also accuses Bowman and Bryant of trying to “intimidate, shame, and embarrass” the Jane Doe into not filing the lawsuit.

Bryant called it Mace’s latest stunt in a long-running blackmail campaign against him.

“It is simply part of a narrative and continuing effort on her part designed to attempt to destroy me, and to somehow benefit politically from the publicity,” he said.

In a statement provided by Mullaney, Jane Doe said she filed the lawsuit “for myself and for other women who fear being publicly shamed if they report what happened to them.”

She went on to note that she and Mace, who is mulling a run for governor next year, “do not share the same political ideology,” saying what’s “important to me is her courage in bringing this to light.”

According to the lawsuit, Mace told her the anti-voyeurism bill she’s working to pass in Congress, which would strengthen penalties for people who record explicit images without consent, would “prevent what happened to her from happening to other women.” The lawsuit also says that bill is why Mace made the speech on the House floor in February.

Mace is separately suing Bowman in a civil lawsuit filed earlier this month in Charleston County, claiming he defamed her on social media following her public accusations.

More lawsuits are likely forthcoming.

The deposition reported about last week was conducted by Barrett Brewer, a lawyer of Bryant’s.

Responding to the deposition, Mace’s office pointed to other parts of Donehue’s statement.

“He said she came to him emotionally distraught and feared for her safety. He saw bruises on her body,” a spokesperson said. “Nothing else matters.”