'There are at least two people in Mace's car': Bryant's counsel refuses to delete the recording, and announces an amended complaint

"There are at least two people in Mace's car when she called Ali Berg. If this was such a confidential conversation, she would have done it in privacy, behind closed doors."

That was Matthew Gallo, counsel for Patrick Bryant, writing to opposing counsel on December 17, 2025, after Berg's attorney asked all parties to delete a recording that had been forwarded outside the bounds of a court-entered confidentiality order. Gallo declined. The dispute, and the emails documenting it, were later filed as exhibits to Berg's motion for contempt in Assignment Desk Works v. Berg, Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671. Both filed documents are reproduced below; the originals are available as PDFs: the Motion for Contempt (PDF, 30 pages) and the Declaration of Counsel in Support (PDF, 11 pages).

The motion, as filed

Page 1 of 30, caption page: Defendant's Motion for Contempt Against Attorney Rene Dukes for Violation of Confidentiality Order, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671, electronically filed Dec. 18, 2025 at 4:15 PM.

Page 3 of 30, Paragraph 8 sets out Gallo's refusal verbatim: "My office will not be deleting the recording." Exhibit C is the attached email.

Page 8 of 30, the prayer for relief and closing signature: s/Marybeth Mullaney, Attorney for Defendant, December 18, 2025.

The supporting affidavit, as filed

Page 1 of 11, Declaration of Counsel in Support of Motion for Contempt, same caption, electronically filed Feb. 5, 2026 at 12:10 PM. Mullaney declares under 28 U.S.C. § 1746.

Page 6 of 11, Exhibit E: Gallo's 5:18 PM reply to Mullaney's deletion request: "My office will not be deleting the recording. There is nothing confidential about it and I'm entitled to it as counsel for Patrick Bryant in related cases. Finally, how is that amended complaint coming along?"

Page 9 of 11, Exhibit D (email chain): Gallo's Dec. 17, 11:33 AM email: "there are at least two people in Mace's car when she called Ali Berg" and "we will be amending our TP complaint based on this new evidence of the recording."

What the filings say

How the recording entered the litigation

The previous evening, December 16, 2025, Berg's counsel, Marybeth Mullaney, had produced the audio file to the opposing side in ADW v. Berg and tagged it as protected material under a consent confidentiality order Judge Hocker had signed on November 24, 2025. Mullaney wrote to plaintiff's counsel Rene Dukes:

"Attached please find a recording of Ms. Mace's first conversation with Ali, which Ms. Mace recently provided to me. I am designating this as confidential."

Dukes forwarded the file the next morning to counsel of record in the related case Berg v. Bryant, lawyers who had not signed the required acknowledgment form under the confidentiality order. Mullaney promptly instructed all recipients to delete it and announced she would seek relief from the court.

"My office will not be deleting the recording"

Bryant's counsel, Matthew Gallo, refused in writing. According to his email, filed as Exhibit E to Mullaney's February 5, 2026 affidavit:

"Thanks for finally responding to an email. Glad you are paying attention. My office will not be deleting the recording. There is nothing confidential about it and I'm entitled to it as counsel for Patrick Bryant in related cases. Finally, how is that amended complaint coming along?"

In a separate email sent earlier that same day, Gallo elaborated on the privacy argument and disclosed Bryant's side intended to use the recording offensively:

"To add, there are at least two people in Mace's car when she called Ali Berg. If this was such a confidential conversation, she would have done it in privacy, behind closed doors. Also, Mace doesn't name any of the 10,000 victims, or 2-3 'Jane Does' that were going to file suit. No one is identified by name. There is also no personal identifiable information. There is nothing. Period."

"Also, we will be amending our TP complaint based on this new evidence of the recording. We will send a copy in the next day or two (unless we get busy)."

Why this matters

The most important fact in this dispute is not the confidentiality question, it is that Bryant's legal team announced, in December 2025, that Mace's own recording gave them new grounds to amend their third-party complaint against her. The recording, which per the filings Mace provided to Berg's counsel and which FITSNews later published in June 2026 (see the companion dispatch: Mace's first recorded call with Ali Berg), was produced in civil discovery. Gallo's position was that witnesses present in Mace's car stripped the call of any confidentiality protection, and that far from being suppressed, the recording would become part of Bryant's affirmative case.

Berg's counsel subsequently moved for contempt against plaintiff's counsel Dukes for the disclosure, filing the motion on December 18, 2025 and supplementing it with an attorney affidavit on February 5, 2026. Those proceedings are ongoing.

All allegations described in these court filings are unproven and contested. Patrick Bryant denies the claims made against him by Ali Berg and others. Nancy Mace denies Bryant's claims in the related litigation. The underlying matters remain pending in civil court; a South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED) investigation is ongoing; nothing here is a finding of fact. For background on the individuals named, see People in the Public Record.

Sources & related coverage:

• The filing itself: Defendant's Motion for Contempt Against Attorney Rene Dukes for Violation of Confidentiality Order (PDF, 30 pages), Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg, Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, Ninth Judicial Circuit, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671, electronically filed December 18, 2025.
• The filing itself: Declaration of Counsel in Support of Motion for Contempt (PDF, 11 pages), Assignment Desk Works, LLC v. Alexis Berg, Charleston County Court of Common Pleas, Ninth Judicial Circuit, Case No. 2025-CP-10-2671, electronically filed February 5, 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