Former San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher is asking a judge to order the release of all communications that mention him between the woman who accused him of sexual assault and her best friend.
Fletcher's accuser Grecia Figueroa contends the friend is her counselor, so their messages are privileged.
In a motion to compel filing this week, Fletcher said for months he has unsuccessfully sought messages between Figueroa, a former Metropolitan Transit System spokeswoman, and Los Angeles journalist Danielle Radin. Fletcher believes the exchanges will exonerate him in a civil lawsuit Figueroa filed against him last year, alleging he sexually assaulted and harassed her. He says the messages will show his relationship with Figueroa was consensual.
Fletcher contends in court papers that every time attorneys for each of the women appeared close to handing over the full cache of communications, which are part of discovery in the case, they ended up parting ways with their clients. Some of the messages between Figueroa and Radin have been submitted to Fletcher’s legal team.
“Given that hundreds of additional text messages are known to exist and considering that defense counsel met and conferred extensively with three sets of attorneys who have now withdrawn from the case immediately after reviewing and withholding the messages, Mr. Fletcher has no choice but to seek the court’s assistance in finally compelling production,” the court filing states.
The document claims the messages that have been turned over were “incomplete, curated, and annotated.” It says one of those messages was dated Nov. 4, 2021, but “it was clear that other, prior communications concerning” Fletcher existed.
“These early texts were also particularly notable and highly relevant, given that they were sent over three months before Mr. Fletcher ever sent his first textual Instagram direct message to Plaintiff (Figueroa) in February 2022,” Fletcher’s filing says. “Indeed, Plaintiff was focused on Mr. Fletcher well before he had any encounters with her.”
In Figueroa’s previous court filings, she claims Fletcher was focused on her. She said in May 2021, she started getting notifications that Fletcher was looking at content on her Instagram profile.
“In the weeks and months that followed, Fletcher viewed almost every photograph and video Ms. Figueroa had posted on her Instagram profile, sometimes viewing them multiple times,” Figueroa’s filing states. “These posts included, for example, pictures/videos of Ms. Figueroa at the beach in a bikini, traveling, or going dancing with girlfriends on the weekend.”
Fletcher’s attorney zeroed in on Radin’s messages after asking Figueroa to name someone whom she told about Fletcher, according to court papers. Figueroa mentioned Radin and identified her as her best friend.
But in March, Figueroa told Judge Matthew Braner during a court hearing that she was reluctant to release communications with an unnamed friend because that friend was also her counselor and so she thought the messages were privileged.
Fletcher’s latest court filing says Radin also wouldn’t turn over the messages, exerting “patient/domestic violence counsel privilege.”
Radin’s LinkedIn profile says she’s a news reporter at KCBS in Los Angeles. She holds a Master’s in communications from Stanford University and an undergraduate degree in rhetoric and comparative religion from UC Berkeley. The page also states that Radin is a certified domestic violence counselor.
Instagram photos show Figueroa and Radin posing with each other on a beach.
Figueroa declined to comment and Radin did not return a call requesting comment.
A hearing in the case is scheduled for Friday.
