This post has been updated.
The Metropolitan Transit System is trying to collect more than $775,000 in attorney fees and costs from Grecia Figueroa, a fired former employee who sued the agency and alleged sexual harassment and assault against former MTS chair Nathan Fletcher.
Lori Saldaña, a former assemblymember, raised concerns about the transit agency’s action to seek attorney fees from Figueroa during public comment at a July MTS meeting.
“Are you aware that you’re requesting a million dollars in legal fees from the woman who filed these allegations against former Chairman Nathan Fletcher?” she asked the board. “She is now working at a minimum wage job. There is no way that she is going to pay a million dollars in legal fees.”
At least two members of the MTS board’s executive committee told a Voice of San Diego reporter that they weren’t involved in the decision to seek attorney fees from her.
Board member and San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said in a statement, that though MTS legal counsel recommended board members decline to comment due to pending litigation, he also was not involved in the decision to pursue the fees.
“That being said, I think it is incredibly important that all public agencies foster environments that protect their employees and never take actions that could have the effect of discouraging employees from reporting sexual harassment and assault,” Elo-Rivera wrote in a statement.
A spokesperson for County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe’s office also wrote in an email that she was “not involved in the decision to seek these legal fees.”
Montgomery Steppe and Elo-Rivera both serve on the executive committee.
The chair of the board, San Diego Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, and vice chair of the board, El Cajon Councilmember Steve Goble, declined to comment.
A spokesperson for MTS declined to comment citing ongoing litigation.
Court records from October 2025 show attorneys for MTS asked a judge to force Figueroa to pay for the agency’s cost of fighting her lawsuit.
“Figueroa’s allegations were unfounded, her termination resulted solely from her documented performance issues and there was no evidence to support her claims,” MTS’ attorneys wrote in a motion.
MTS wants $683,556 for attorney fees and $92,387 for other costs.
Figueroa accused MTS of aligning itself with Fletcher and has disputed the transit agency’s version of events.
“MTS failed to protect me as an employee. Now, by seeking nearly $1 million in fees against me, it is attempting to financially punish me and further damage my reputation for having spoken up,” Figueroa said in a statement.
Her attorney, John Holcomb, argued in an August filing that Figueroa “is currently living paycheck to paycheck” as she has struggled for two years to find stable employment after the loss of her MTS job. In filings to the court, Holcomb noted Figueroa is now working a job that pays $22 an hour.
Figueroa sued Fletcher and MTS back in March 2023, the same day the former supervisor resigned as board chair of MTS and subsequently abandoned his campaign for state Senate and checked into treatment for trauma and alcohol abuse. Figueroa claimed that, a month earlier, she was abruptly fired and ordered to leave immediately.
Fletcher filed a defamation lawsuit against Figueroa in 2024.
In August 2025, a San Diego Superior Court judge dismissed Figueroa’s case against MTS, ruling that her firing was based on performance issues. Days later, the judge threw out the sexual harassment case against Fletcher because Figueroa had deleted evidence detrimental to her claims.
Figueroa is appealing the court’s decision.
“Ruling on this motion prior to the determination of the appeal would be an unnecessary use of court resources,” Holcomb argued in the August filing.
Figueroa also filed a civil harassment restraining order request last September against Fletcher’s wife, California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. Superior Court Judge Blair A. Soper denied the request the following month because it failed to meet “the burden of proof.”
A hearing for the transit agency’s request is set for Friday, Aug. 28.
Update: This post has been updated to clarify that a judge denied the restraining order request and to include more information on the ongoing legal cases.
That woman ruined a career because she had the hots for Nathan Fletcher. Figueroa doesn’t need our sympathy. She needs a psychologist.
Seems like he had the “hots” for her too. Either way, higher ups are not supposed to have physical relationships with their subordinates. Especially in the taxpayer’s dime. He broke the rules.
The one that needs a psychologist is Nathan Fletcher who pursued subordinates and forced himself on them. He SA’d this woman while carrying a fire arm inside the MTS headquarters.
Harry Martin sounds like a scorned Lorena Gonzalez using a fake name because she can’t face how toxic her marriage to Nathan Fletcher is and the fact that he monitored and pursued multiple subordinates. You help addicts by setting strong boundaries with them, not by babying them and acting like they did nothing wrong. No woman should ever be put in a position where professional boundaries are blurred by someone with power over them. Every psychologist with integrity will back that statement.
This is retaliation, full stop. Wasn’t that also one of her claims against MTS? MTS is proving they are doing exactly what she accused them of. Why is MTS saying her allegations were unfounded? The public hasn’t heard her testimony and from the deposition transcripts that were made public I find her experience very credible. This woman was traumatized by Fletcher and now being punished for speaking up. This is not where I want my tax payer dollars going to.
I find it interesting that the board members keep saying they “weren’t involved in the decision.” Okay, maybe they weren’t involved in filing the fees motion, but they have the power to stop it. They are key players in major decisions at MTS, and this motion could have repercussions that can affect employees willingness to report abuse for decades to come.
And they can’t say they didn’t know about it either. Lori Saldana brought it up back in July. They know what’s going on. They may not have started it, but the question now is, what are they going to do about it? Sit and watch? Or stand up for workers.