South Carolina Charges Three Men in Assault Case

Three men connected to remarks U.S. Representative Nancy Mace made in a House speech faced sex crime and voyeurism charges Wednesday over a 2018 incident, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said. They were booked into the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in Charleston County. The charges mark the state’s formal action, while the underlying account remains allegations described in an arrest affidavit.

Charges and the State’s Case

Brendan Patrick Bryant, 53, Mace’s former fiancé, faces a voyeurism charge. John Douglas Osborne, 46, whom Mace called Bryant’s business associate in her speech, faces first-degree assault and battery and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Eric Bernard Bowman, 46, another of Bryant’s business associates, faces charges of voyeurism, obstruction of justice and publishing the name of a victim of criminal sexual conduct.

The charges stem from events one evening in October 2018 in Charleston, S.C. The woman at the center of the case was 23 at the time. These are charges, not findings of guilt; an arrest affidavit cited in the records provides the account of what happened.

According to the affidavit, the woman fell into a pool and later passed out on a couch. She had taken off her wet clothes and lay with a pillow covering herself. Police described her as drunk and incapacitated, according to records. The affidavit says Osborne performed sex acts on her as Bryant and Bowman watched.

The affidavit also says the men discussed who should assault her first, and photographed and recorded the assault. Those details describe the allegations behind the charges. The account places the woman, incapacitated and unable to participate, at the center of events in which others allegedly discussed and documented assaults against her.

A Speech, Then Charges

Mace described the episode at length in a speech on the House floor last year. Her remarks linked the case to the institution where elected officials speak, while the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division brought the charges. The base account doesn’t describe a legislative proposal, an election campaign or a community-organized response. It records a speech and the state’s criminal charges.

The men went into a county detention center. The source provides no further details about court proceedings, pleas or outcomes, so none can be inferred from the charges alone. The state’s action is specific: it named three men, listed the charges against each and placed them in a detention facility. The affidavit supplies the alleged conduct; it doesn’t describe any proceedings that may follow.

The Briefing’s Other Item

The Washington Post’s The Seven morning briefing, titled “Catch up quickly: Execution live stream; Nancy Mace; regrowing knees,” listed seven stories it considered important and interesting. Its visible item about Ukraine said Kyiv reported that the country’s access to Starlink had been restricted without warning.

That briefing mention appears alongside coverage of Mace and the related charges, but the source provides no further connection between the Ukraine item and the South Carolina case. It also reports no direct action, mutual aid or other grassroots response to the allegations. What it documents is an institutional chain: a House speech, an investigation and charges announced by state law enforcement, and a woman’s account as described in an arrest affidavit. The allegations now sit before the criminal justice system; the source doesn’t report what happens next.