South Carolina authorities charged Rep. Nancy Mace’s former fiancé and two business associates with sex crimes tied to a 2018 assault she first detailed in a February 2025 House speech.
State Law Enforcement Division agents brought the cases Wednesday against John Douglas Osborne, Patrick Bryant, and Eric Bernard Bowman over an October 2018 episode at a home on Sullivan’s Island, an affluent Charleston suburb, the Associated Press reported.
Sworn statements describe Osborne committing sex acts on a 23-year-old woman who was intoxicated and incapacitated while Bryant and Bowman watched, recorded the assault, and discussed beforehand who would take part.
The filing lands more than a year after Mace, a South Carolina Republican, used the House floor to name the men and describe what she said she found on Bryant’s phone. For victims and for voters who want predators held to account, the charges turn a long public accusation into a concrete criminal case.
According to the agents’ sworn statements summarized in the wire report, the woman had fallen into a pool and later lay passed out on a couch, covering herself with a pillow. The men talked about who would assault her, then took photos and recorded what followed. The same scene appeared on the home’s security system.
Another woman who happened to be watching that feed saw the assault, took pictures, and wrote about it in a journal, police said. Osborne, 46, faces first-degree assault and battery and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Bryant, 53, and Bowman, 46, each face a voyeurism charge.
The New York Post reported the same core charging picture and noted the alleged assault came before Mace and Bryant’s 2022 engagement, which ended in 2023. Mace and Bryant were not yet engaged in October 2018.
Bowman faces two more counts. Agents said he factory-reset a cellphone he knew investigators wanted under a search warrant, drawing an obstruction of justice charge. He is also charged with publishing the name of a victim of criminal sexual conduct after posting the woman’s name and a video of her on X.
SLED did not say whether any investigation into the men is still open. Attorneys listed for Osborne and Bowman in other matters did not immediately return messages. Bryant did not return a message seeking comment Wednesday.
In February 2025, Mace delivered a nearly hourlong floor speech that named the men and described photos and videos she said she uncovered while looking at Bryant’s cellphone when the couple was still together. She framed the material as evidence of rape, nonconsensual images, and calculated exploitation in her district.
"I accidentally uncovered some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable, we are talking about rape, nonconsensual photos, nonconsensual videos of women and underage girls, and the premeditated, calculated, exploitation of women and girls in my district," Mace said in a nearly hour-long speech.
Just the News carried that account of the speech and a further line from Mace on how the men treated the abuse itself.
"These men didn’t just harm their victims. They recorded their depravity as if it were a badge of honor."
At the time of her public allegations, Bryant completely denied them. He previously told the Associated Press he would cooperate to clear his name.
"I take this matter seriously and will cooperate fully with any necessary legal processes to clear my name,"
Public naming of alleged sex offenders on the House floor is rare, though not unheard of in recent sessions, including when Rep. Thomas Massie named a former prince in connection with Jeffrey Epstein-related sex crime claims.
After the arrests, Mace released a statement casting the case as part of a longer fight over broken systems that leave survivors exposed while offenders find loopholes.
"Protecting women and holding predators accountable isn’t a slogan. It’s been one of my top priorities in Congress. For too long, survivors have faced broken systems while predators exploited loopholes and walked free,"
Breitbart also quoted her broader pledge on safety and accountability for women, children, and survivors. She detailed 25 bills she says would protect victims of sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination, including in retaliatory defamation and libel suits. This week she introduced a proposal requiring anyone who brings such a case and loses to pay the other side’s attorney fees.
Mace is leaving the House at the end of this term after a failed bid for South Carolina governor. Even so, she has kept sexual-assault disputes in the foreground, including her reading of text messages in a Cornell fraternity case she argued showed consent rather than rape.
That campus fight widened into party freezes and special-prosecutor politics far from Charleston, with Cornell halting fraternity parties for the academic year while state leaders argued over who should run the probe.
Mace has also been a target herself. A South Carolina man, Samuel Cain, drew house arrest rather than prison after a conviction for threatening to assassinate her, another reminder that lawmakers who push these cases do not operate in a vacuum.
The verified sequence is straightforward. October 2018: the Sullivan’s Island episode described in SLED statements. Later, while Mace and Bryant were still together: she has said she found the phone material. February 2025: she put names and allegations on the House floor. Wednesday’s charges: Osborne on assault and criminal sexual conduct counts; Bryant on voyeurism; Bowman on voyeurism, obstruction, and publishing a victim’s identity.
Open questions remain. SLED has not said whether the inquiry continues. Full charging papers, docket numbers, and any defense beyond Bryant’s earlier denial were not detailed in the initial reports. The 23-year-old woman and the witness who watched the feed were not named in the charging description released to the press.
None of those gaps erases what agents put in sworn statements: an incapacitated victim, advance talk about assault, photos and video, a security feed, a wiped phone sought by warrant, and a victim’s name put online.
When a member of Congress risks the floor to name alleged predators, and state agents later file charges that match the core of that account, the system is finally doing the minimum victims were owed years ago.
