Affidavits allege Osborne assaulted unconscious woman as two watched

Mace did not publicly address the charges Wednesday, though she posted on social media a photo of herself in the same dress she wore the day she made the Feb. 10, 2025 House floor speech. The accompanying caption called for bills to be passed to protect women and girls from predators.

“Women and children deserve to be safe,” Mace said. “We will always stand with women, children and survivors. And we will not stop until every predator is held accountable.”

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division announced the charges Wednesday against John Douglas Osborne, 46, Brendan Patrick Bryant, 53, and Eric Bernard Bowman, 46 — three of the four men Mace accused in the 2025 speech — with offenses related to the alleged sexual assault of a 23-year-old incapacitated woman in 2018. All three were booked into the Sheriff Al Cannon Detention Center in Charleston County.

Bryant is Mace’s former fiancé. Mace has said she ended her engagement to Bryant in November 2023 after discovering videos of women being sexually abused on his cellphone.

The announcement came nearly two years after Mace took to the House floor on Feb. 10, 2025, to accuse the three men and another of raping and filming women they had incapacitated. She also alleged that they took nonconsensual photos and videos of the victims. Mace said she had found thousands of videos and photos of the alleged crimes and had identified almost a dozen dozen victims, including herself.

According to the affidavits supporting the charges, the alleged incident occurred Oct. 26, 2018, on Sullivan’s Island, a 3½-mile-long barrier island home to some 2,000 people near Charleston Harbor.

The documents say the victim, a 23-year-old woman, was drunk when she fell into a swimming pool at a residence on the island. She removed her wet clothes but for her bra and passed out on a sofa.

While she was unconscious, the three men are accused of discussing sexual exploits before agreeing that Osborne would have sex with the woman as the others watched. The documents allege that as Osborne kissed, digitally penetrated and performed oral sex on the incapacitated woman, Bryant and Bowman watched. They are also accused of taking photos and video of the incident.

An unidentified witness allegedly overheard the conversation between the men and watched Bowman and Bryant via a home security video feed apparently record the assault. The documents state the witness also obtained and saved two still photographic images from the security video feed and created an email or journal entry detailing the incident from her perspective.

Osborne was charged with first-degree assault and battery and two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree, while Bowman was charged with voyeurism, obstruction of justice and publishing the name of a victim of criminal sexual conduct. Bryant was charged with voyeurism.

All three of the men previously denied Mace’s allegations.