Former San Diego County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher organized a press conference Friday to deliver his first public remarks since a judge dismissed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him last month.
Fletcher choked up several times as he spoke before a row of cameras.
“With this behind us, we have a weight that’s been lifted to allow us to enjoy life, to look ahead,” he said with his wife, Lorena Gonzalez, by his side.
Metropolitan Transit System employee Grecia Figueroa accused Fletcher of sexual harassment and assault in a 2023 lawsuit. Fletcher was chair of the MTS board at the time.
He soon stepped down from the transit board, resigned from the county Board of Supervisors and dropped his run for state Senate.
The contentious civil case plodded its way through the legal process for more than two years. In recent weeks, a judge dismissed the case with terminating sanctions against Figueroa for deleting messages and delaying the production of evidence during the discovery process.
Mary-Beth Moylan, a professor at the McGeorge School of Law, said the sanctions are an extraordinary step for a judge to take.
“The court decided to issue terminating sanctions, which means your case is going to be dismissed because you didn’t play by the rules,” she said after reviewing the judge’s ruling. “And it seems like this happened over the course of many months.”
Figueroa has pushed back on the idea that she intentionally deleted messages and said she stands by the allegations. She plans to appeal the dismissal.
Fletcher said he has no intention of returning to public office.
“I will look back on the eight years I spent in San Diego in public office with a measure of pride — that I fought as hard as I could to make San Diego a better place,” he said.
Fletcher apologized to his family at the press conference, acknowledging his consensual affair with Figueroa, and thanked them for staying by his side throughout the lawsuit. During the litigation, Fletcher said he went to rehab for alcohol abuse and participated in equine-based trauma therapy.
He also attended a psychedelic ibogaine retreat in Mexico that he described as “truly transformative.”
