Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) has been hit with a bombshell lawsuit by her ex-fiancé accusing her of fabricating sexual assault allegations as part of an elaborate conspiracy, the New York Post reports.
Businessman Patrick Bryant accused Mace of convincing an "impressionable" woman, who is known only as Jane Doe, that she was "gang raped" at the home of Bryant's friend, Eric Bowman.
In February, Mace gave a speech on the House floor in which she accused Bryant, Bowman, and two other men of assaulting Mace and a dozen other women.
Mace shared no evidence but claimed to have found a trove of videos on Bryant's phone.
“Last year, I had to tell a woman that she’d been raped, and she didn’t even know it,” Mace said at the time.
The woman Mace cited in her speech filed a lawsuit in May, claiming she was raped by an associate of Bryant's at Bowman's home in a 2018 incident. The unidentified Jane Doe, who previously worked for Bryant, claimed that Bryant and Bowman filmed the assault while she was unconscious.
After Doe's suit was filed, Mace held a press conference where she read aloud from the complaint and took no questions, the Post and Courier noted.
In his countersuit, Bryant said he is the only victim and that the shocking claims against him were fabricated by Mace and Bowman's estranged wife as part of a blackmail scheme that involved falsely convincing Doe that she was assaulted.
Doe told another person that Mace never showed her video of the alleged assault, Bryant claims.
“What Mace did not tell Doe is that she concocted an entire false narrative of an assault, to blackmail Bryant, gain leverage in their separation proceedings, and try to ruin Bryant for her personal gain,” according to Bryant's lawsuit.
Mace and Bryant were engaged for a little over a year, splitting in late 2023. Bryant claims that Mace tried to hack his phone over suspicions of cheating and that she asked a former political consultant to blackmail Bryant using images she found on the device, but she never mentioned anything about sexual assault.
The consultant, Wesley Donehue, has testified under oath that Mace wanted him to threaten Bryant into giving Mace full ownership of two pricey homes the former couple bought together in South Carolina and Washington, D.C.
Mace issued a taunting response to her ex's lawsuit, saying, "It’s almost as if Patrick Bryant is asking to write me another check. I just got him sanctioned in court. And rape victim Jane Doe and I are still waiting on him to pay our legal fees after he weaponized the court against us.”
On Oct. 29, a court order determined that Bryant’s company and his lawyer violated South Carolina law by issuing subpoenas and deposing people without court approval in Doe’s case.
