Part of: Berg v. Bryant (and Bryant's Third-Party Complaint against Mace) · Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg · Musgrave v. Mace (2:25-cv-01823-RMG) · Litigation Overview & Court-Filing Index
Bryant's Own Lawyer Alleges Mace 'Stole' His Phone and Hired a PI to Extract Its Data
In a public court filing, Patrick Bryant's attorney asserted in an email exhibit that Nancy Mace took Bryant's Samsung Galaxy S22 from his home and hired a private investigator to copy files off it. The allegations are unproven and contested; Berg's motion argues that Bryant's own pleadings directly contradict the account.
"Mace stole the original S22 phone from Bryant's house/safe and Bryant has not possessed it since late-2023."
That line appears not in a complaint or a news article but in a January 15, 2026 email from Patrick Bryant's own attorney, Nosizi Ralephata of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, sent to opposing counsel in the ADW v. Berg civil matter, and it was filed as a public court exhibit on February 10, 2026, when Alexis Berg's counsel moved to compel forensic inspection of the missing phone. The filed motion is reproduced in full below; the original PDF is available here.
The same email goes further. Bryant's counsel, Nosizi Ralephata, asserted:
"See attached messages in which Mace confirms in June that she got a PI to download files off Bryant's phone, put them on a computer, and downloaded them to a new phone."
The "attached messages" Ralephata referenced are underlying private communications. Only counsel's characterization, as it appears in the public court filing, is quoted here; the private messages themselves are not reproduced.
Those two sentences, Bryant's own lawyer accusing Mace of stealing the device from his home and retaining a private investigator to extract its data, form the factual core of Berg's motion. Berg's attorney, Marybeth Mullaney, argued that the S22 is critical to Berg's defense because it allegedly contains evidence of Bryant's conduct, and that Bryant's explanations for its absence are "irreconcilable." The motion pointedly notes that Ralephata's account creates a new contradiction: Bryant's own Third-Party Complaint states he personally examined the S22 in "mid-December 2023" and discovered a data-extraction application on it, yet Ralephata now asserts Mace has had the phone since "late-2023." Those timelines cannot both be true, and the motion argues the inconsistency points toward spoliation by Bryant, not Mace. SLED confirmed in a February 5, 2026 letter that it does not possess the S22; the only phone SLED obtained from Bryant was a different device, a Samsung Galaxy S23, seized pursuant to a search warrant in February 2025.
Why this matters, and why it is contested. The allegation is striking because it comes from Bryant's own counsel, not from Berg or Mace. But it is an adversarial assertion made in a letter to opposing counsel and entered into a contested motion, not a finding of any court. Mace has not been charged with any crime related to Bryant's phone. The underlying civil and criminal proceedings remain open and unresolved, and no court has made any finding of fact on these questions.
The motion, as filed
The four pages below are selected from the 19-page filing: the Ralephata email exhibit containing the key allegations (p. 1 of 19), the motion's case-caption page (p. 5 of 19), the "irreconcilable" contradiction analysis (p. 9 of 19), and the conclusion and attorney signature (p. 14 of 19).
Page 1 of 19, Exhibit 2: the Ralephata email (Jan. 15, 2026) containing both key allegations: "Mace stole the original S22 phone from Bryant's house/safe" and the PI download assertion.
Page 5 of 19, the motion's first page: case caption, Assignment Desk Works v. Alexis Berg, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671, with the full title of the motion and Berg's opening argument.
Page 9 of 19, the "irreconcilable" passage: "Bryant cannot simultaneously claim he examined the phone in mid-December 2023 and that he has not possessed it since late-2023," and the SLED confirmation that no S22 was ever in its possession.
Page 14 of 19, the conclusion and signature: Marybeth Mullaney, Mullaney Law, Attorney for Defendant Alexis Berg, dated February 10, 2026, North Charleston, South Carolina.
What the filing says
The analysis above and the verbatim quotes in this dispatch are drawn directly from the filed document shown in full above.
The claims described here are allegations made by an adverse party in ongoing litigation, specifically, Bryant's counsel's assertions as quoted in a public court filing. They are unproven and contested. Nancy Mace, Patrick Bryant, and the other parties named across these proceedings deny various aspects of the allegations against them; none of the underlying matters has been adjudicated. SLED's investigation remains open. Nothing here is a finding of fact or a merits opinion. For background on the people involved, see People in the Public Record.
Sources & related coverage:
- The filing itself: Defendant Alexis Berg's Motion to Compel Forensic Inspection of Patrick Bryant's Samsung Galaxy S22 Smartphone (PDF, 19 pages), Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg, Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, Ninth Judicial Circuit, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671, filed February 10, 2026.
- The state docket is verifiable on the SC Judicial Branch Public Index (Charleston County) under Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671.
- Case background: The Litigation
