Antelope Valley Press

Supervisor to resign after sexual assault lawsuit

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The chair of San Diego County’s Board of supervisors said he will resign amid accusations that he sexually assaulted a government employee, completing a shocking fall for a decorated Marine combat veteran whose star rose with his Democratic Party’s ascendancy in the nation’s eighth-largest city.

Nathan Fletcher, who defected from the Republican Party in 2013, was elected to a second term with 65% of the vote in November, two years after Democrats won a Board majority that eluded their grasp for decades.

Fletcher, 46, was the face of the San Diego region’s muscular response to COVID-19 at daily news conferences. He became half of San Diego’s most powerful political couple after his 2017 marriage to Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, a wellknown liberal Democratic state assemblywoman who became a top California labor leader last year.

Fletcher’s progressive positions and telegenic presence made him a solid favorite to succeed another prominent California politician, Toni Atkins, in the state Senate. But he announced late Sunday that he was dropping his bid after less than two months to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol abuse.

Days later, Fletcher resigned as chair of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System after a former television reporter who worked in the agency’s public relations office alleged sexual harassment and assault in a lawsuit that included screenshots of lurid messages from Fletcher.

Hours after that, Fletcher said he would resign from the county Board of supervisors, calling the pressure on his family over the last week “immense and unbearable.”

“A combination of my personal mistakes plus false accusations has created a burden that my family shouldn’t have to bear,” he said.

He will leave office May 15. Fletcher’s fall jolted the city a week after officials made a critical turn in a saga that has captivated the city and threatened other top politicians.

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2023-03-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-31T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://avpress.pressreader.com/article/281548000154405

Alberta Newspaper Group