SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A court on Friday denied requests made by Nathan Fletcher to bring the lawsuit from a former Metropolitan Transit System employee accusing him of sexual misconduct to an early end, raising the likelihood of it reaching a civil jury trial later this year. Amid bitter discovery battles, the ex-supervisor had asked the court to either dismiss the case or end it early through summary judgement, pointing to a series of text messages they argued show the relationship between him and his accuser, Grecia Figueroa, had been consensual. The judge presiding over the case, Matthew Braner, denied both motions, saying it was not his place to decide whether the messages prove Figueroa had given Fletcher consent in the course of their interactions both online and in-person. He noted, while many certainly raise questions about the nature of their relationship, none contain plain statements opposing the allegation that is the basis of Figueroa's lawsuit: that the advances online and physical interactions were unwelcome. Timeline: Unfolding of the Nathan Fletcher scandal "The court may agree [Fletcher] presented strong evidence to support his defense … But the dispute ultimately goes to the weight of the evidence and determinations of credibility, which are fundamentally jury questions," he wrote in a tentative ruling released before the hearing. The parties are expected to decide on a trial date at a hearing next week, after an earlier timeline to bring the case before a jury was vacated due to some of these outstanding evidentiary issues. The court will also be revisiting whether to have a technician analyze Figueroa's phone again, following accusations from Fletcher's attorneys that the former MTS public relations specialist had deleted at least 15 text messages in August they believe could disprove her case. Last March, this same issue of alleged interference with evidence led the court to issue a temporary restraining order for her phone. Fletcher's attorneys were seeking these missing messages, which were between Figueroa and a friend who she identified as a witness to her allegations, through a subpoena to one of the former MTS employee's previous attorneys. Braner quashed the subpoena along with his denial for summary judgement Friday, saying the secondary analysis of Figueroa's phone and future forensic examination of her friend's iCloud history is enough for the time being to search for any outstanding texts. "There is certainly some evidence there has been some deletions — I'm not making a finding, but I appreciate why you are digging in so hard. But at a minimum, it's premature," Braner explained during the hearing. Friday's proceedings come nearly two years into Figueroa's bombshell lawsuit that propelled Fletcher's resignation from office. In her initial complaint filed back in March 2023, the former MTS employee had accused Fletcher of initiating a series of unwanted advances that then escalated to one instance of pressured physical intimacy and two instances of alleged sexual assault at MTS headquarters. While her recollection of these events remains unchanged, Figueroa has since voluntarily dismissed some of the more serious causes of action from her lawsuit, including sexual assault, battery, gender violence and retaliation by Fletcher in her subsequent firing. Fletcher has admitted to engaging in an inappropriate relationship with Figueroa, but has insisted their interactions were all consensual. Over the course of discovery, caches of text messages shared by Fletcher’s attorneys between the former supervisor and Figueroa, as well as his accuser and a friend, appeared to show at least some degree of a consensual relationship for a time. Concern over potential San Diego Unified housing development in Serra Mesa Taken together, Figueroa appeared to hold mixed feelings about Fletcher — on some occasions she praised his looks while apparently flirting and at other times described him as a “classic narcissist” whom she did not want to engage with romantically. In this trove of texts, she also expresses to her friend how the interactions had begun to take a toll on her mental health, leading her to thoughts of suicide. These texts were dated mid-2022, around the same time that MTS officials began exploring probationary language in her job performance review — the precursor to her eventual firing on the same day Fletcher launched a now-defunct bid for California State Senate. In response to Figueroa's lawsuit, Fletcher, who announced his resignation from office hours after it was filed in 2023, mounted a countersuit for defamation, alleging she intentionally ignored facts in taking legal action and caused "significant damages" to his reputation. The countersuit will likely be heard concurrently with Figueroa's if and when the case goes to trial.