In tentative ruling, judge dismisses sexual harassment lawsuit against Nathan Fletcher

The sexual harassment lawsuit that pushed former San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher from his career in public office appears likely to be terminated in its entirety, if a tentative ruling issued late Thursday stands.

Superior Court Judge Matthew C. Braner said the plaintiff, Grecia Figueroa, withheld and destroyed so much evidence in the case that he plans to end it at a hearing scheduled for Friday morning.

“First, (the) plaintiff engaged in rampant and willful spoliation of evidence,” Braner wrote in his six-page preliminary decision.

“Plaintiff engaged in a pattern of preserving only the evidence she believed was helpful to her case, while actively deleting, or knowingly allowing to be deleted, evidence that was likely detrimental to her claims,” the judge wrote.

Braner said he determined that Figueroa deserved to be sanctioned for not fully cooperating with the discovery process. He decided against imposing a monetary penalty and instead ruled that the case should be dismissed.

Figueroa “engaged in this conduct while under a duty to preserve evidence,” Braner wrote at the bottom of his ruling.

Figueroa sued Fletcher in early 2023, naming as defendants both him and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, where she had been a public relations specialist and he served as board chair.

She said he had pursued her sexually, harassing her in private messages and groping her on two occasions in MTS offices, and she accused the transit agency of firing her as a result.

Last week, the judge dismissed MTS from the case, saying there was no evidence that officials knew about or condoned any harassment or retaliation, and signaled they intended to terminate Figueroa before she lodged her allegations.

Figueroa said late Thursday that she was stunned by the early decision.

“I am in shock,” she said of the tentative ruling. “Two weeks ago the judge said he was not going to do that. He said ending the suit was only in extreme cases where the plaintiff does not collaborate in discovery or abandons the case.”

Figueroa said she sat for 25 hours of depositions, turned over some 10,000 text messages and thousands of other documents to Fletcher’s legal team and even handed over mental health evaluations.

“I cooperated to a degree that is insane,” she said.

Fletcher, who countersued her for defamation last year, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

He has said he acted inappropriately with Figueroa and violated the trust of his marriage, but has denied ever assaulting or harassing her while he served as chair of the transit board.

Fletcher also said previously that he intends to pursue the defamation lawsuit regardless of the outcome of Figueroa’s claim.

If the tentative ruling is upheld after the hearing Friday, it could help end a stormy chapter that rocked the San Diego County government.

The first public inkling that something was amiss came in March 2023, weeks after Fletcher announced he would seek then-Sen. Toni Atkins’ seat in the state Senate.

On a Sunday night, Fletcher said that he was suspending his campaign and stepping away from the Board of Supervisors to enter treatment for post-traumatic stress and alcohol use.

Figueroa filed her lawsuit two days later. Fletcher denied her allegations, then days later said he would resign.

The supervisor’s departure hobbled governance at the county Board of Supervisors, which controls a budget of more than $8 billion and sets policy for more than 3 million people.

With Fletcher gone, the five-member body was often at loggerheads between its two Democrats and two Republicans, until Monica Montgomery Steppe was elected to succeed him later that year.

The board would find itself in a similar position the following year, after then-Supervisor Nora Vargas said she would leave office weeks after winning re-election. Last month, former Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre was elected and sworn in as supervisor, once again giving Democrats a 3-2 majority.

Fletcher is married to Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, the former state Assembly member who now runs a powerful state labor organization. Gonzalez has defended her husband as he rejected all claims that he abused his authority or behaved illegally.

Since leaving public office, Fletcher has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars he had raised from donors to his state Senate campaign on his legal defense, which included a bevy of high-profile litigators.

Figueroa, meanwhile, stumbled several times in the closely watched litigation. She went through at least four teams of lawyers, for a period representing herself.

Both she and one of her prior lawyers were sanctioned for failing to turn over evidence requested by Fletcher’s lawyers, Braner noted in his tentative ruling.

“Plaintiff was ordered to produce all communications and all voice recordings between herself and Defendant Fletcher,” he wrote. “But plaintiff never produced the requested audio files and a recent forensic examination of plaintiff’s phone confirmed any such notes cannot be recovered.”

The judge also noted the implausibility of Figueroa’s claim that she inadvertently erased messages. He singled out a 23-second audio file recording Figueroa sent to Fletcher in 2022 that he alleged was “an erotic message” demonstrating her willing participation in a relationship.

“It was not until October 7, 2024 that plaintiff served an amended response indicating the recording no longer exists, as it had been ‘unsent,’” Braner wrote.

The hearing Friday is set to provide each side time to argue their legal positions beyond the documents and filings that have already been submitted to the court. The judge may uphold his ruling at the end of the hearing or issue a final decision later.

Figueroa said Thursday that she plans to attend the proceeding.