Court filing targets Mace, alleged sexual assault victim in legal battle

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Attorneys representing a company owned by the former fiancé of U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Mace filed a court petition against Mace and an alleged sexual assault victim in an ongoing legal battle.

Patrick Bryant, the former fiancé of Mace, is one of four men Mace labeled as “predators” during a speech on the U.S. House floor back on Feb. 10. Mace claimed that she found videos on Bryant’s phone depicting the sexual assaults of women and accused Bryant and the three others of either taking part in sexual assaults or recording other others committing them.

In a new court filing, attorneys representing a company GLT2 LLC, a company Mace argues Bryant formed to obtain depositions to discredit her, argued that Mace and Jane Doe, an alleged victim of the abuse, come to court with “unclean hands” when they demanded to intervene in GLT2’s request for authorization for those depositions. That request has been granted and is scheduled for Thursday at 11:30 a.m.

The legal doctrine of “unclean hands” is a defense to a complaint that argues that “the party who is asking for a judgment cannot have the court’s help if he or she has done anything unethical in relation to the subject of the lawsuit,” Law.com’s Legal Dictionary states.

GLT2’s attorneys filed a memorandum on Wednesday opposing Mace’s motion to intervene and a request for sanctions against the company, arguing that Mace is attempting to use her alleged Congressional immunity “as both a sword and a shield.”

“She publicizes that she is the key witness to have seen information that damns Bryant, but has not provided the information she claims to have seen. Mace is attacking and trying Bryant in the media and in the court of public opinion, accusing Bryant of alleged rape, sexual abuse, and/or the alleged recording of rape and sexual abuse, without providing sufficient information about the identities of the alleged Doe claimants or the details of each such alleged act,” the document states.

It also accused Mace of using her “bully pulpit” to leverage state public officials into arresting Bryant and attempting to “delegitimize public officials and institutions, by threatening to sue the public officials and have the federal government, ‘take over’ the State of South Carolina, for not taking criminal action against Bryant, which upon information and belief would benefit the Defendant civil cases.”

But Bryant’s team also argues that Doe is publicly filing claims that rely on “the media bias Mace is creating in her favor,” all the while “admitting to third-parties that Doe called her lawyers, before the filing of the Doe complaint and told them Doe believed, ‘Nancy’s making all this up,’, ‘This is literally a lie,’ that Doe doesn’t trust Mace, and that Mace is using Doe for political gain.”

Doe’s lawyers then filed a complaint against Bryant relying on Mace as a core or key witness, Bryant’s team alleges.

Mace released the following statement on X Friday morning in response to the new filing:

There is nothing lower than a predator suing the very women he’s already victimized. That’s not justice. That’s weaponization of the justice system.

I’m not just fighting for myself - I’m fighting for every woman and girl who’s been silenced, threatened, or dragged through the courts. I WILL HOLD THE LINE FOR YOU.

And I will change the laws that let abusers weaponize the legal system to punish their victims.

Mace’s request to intervene came in mid-June when she argued publicly that the depositions the company sought were a “deliberate abuse of the judicial process.” Her petition alleged that the depositions were to be of people who might have committed “civil wrongs” against the company.

Mace, however, included a transcript of an April 28 deposition of political consultant Wesley Donehue about his professional involvement with Mace. The text of the deposition states the consultant discussed Mace allegedly asking him to “blackmail” Bryant over a house after Mace “found things” on Bryant’s phone.

Attorneys for GLT2 said they were dropping their motion for the depositions. But they noted that Mace has “unilaterally and publicly raised her own credibility as a key issue in these forthcoming suits, since Mace claims to have viewed certain evidentiary videos and, without offering any evidence but her own representations, characterizing the videos as showing Bryant and other men engaging in rape, sexual assault, and/or the filming of rape and sexual assault of the alleged Jane Doe witnesses.”

They argue she also admitted to being the source of, if not the sole source, of information that the alleged victims are relying on in their pending civil actions.

“Donehue provided testimony, under oath, as set forth in the transcript, that calls into question Mace’s reliability as the sole witness to characterize and describe the content of the alleged videos,” the document states.

They further argue that Mace publicly claimed “at great length” that there were dozens of victims coming forward, but did not identify them and “did not set forth specific facts in each instance.”

Mace, they argued, publicly alleged in the media that she informed potential victims about the alleged videos, and that they would be coming forward against Bryant.

“In so doing, Mace publicly placed her own credibility as the relator of the contents of the alleged videos at the center of the potential Doe witnesses’ claims,” the document states.

The company is asking the court to prevent Mace and the alleged victim from intervening and that they have no legal standing to be able to do so.

The company’s attorneys also ask that Mace’s request for sanctions against the company be denied since the petition to seek depositions has been withdrawn.

A former employee of Bryant and an alleged victim of sexual assault filed a separate lawsuit in May against Bryant, GLT2, and two of the other three men Mace named as “predators,” John Osborne and Eric Bowman.

Mace read portions of the text of the lawsuit during a news conference at her Daniel Island office. Mace did not name the woman who filed the lawsuit, but said the victim was one of the women she saw in photos and video footage that prompted her Feb. 10 speech on the House floor.

After Mace’s speech, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division confirmed it had opened an investigation on allegations of assault, harassment and voyeurism on Dec. 14, 2023, after they were contacted by U.S. Capitol Police. SLED spokesperson Renee Wunderlich said in a statement that the agency has conducted “multiple interviews, served multiple search warrants, and has a well-documented case file that will be available for release upon the conclusion of the case.”

Bryant released a statement after SLED revealed the investigation, saying, “I categorically deny these allegations. I take this matter seriously and will cooperate fully with any necessary legal processes to clear my name.”

More than a year-and-a-half after the investigation was opened, there is still no word on where the investigation stands or when it is expected to be closed.