San Diego trial attorney John Gomez, who was first accused of sexual harassment four years ago, has filed a lawsuit against his most recent accuser, an unidentified woman who alleged he offered to send her sexually charged photos.
The lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court this week accuses the plaintiff, known in court records as Jane Doe, of extortion, defamation, malicious prosecution and other claims.
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His filing comes two months after Doe withdrew her lawsuit.
According to Gomez’s complaint, the woman sought to extort money from him and his law firm, Gomez Trial Attorneys, and to damage their reputations.
The lawsuit also alleges she was involved in a broad plot to discredit him and that she offered to reveal to him the identities of “all attorneys and legal professionals involved in reputational and media strategies adverse to Mr. Gomez” in exchange for up to $12 million.
“Defendant’s admissions reveal that her lawsuit was part of a coordinated campaign involving multiple attorneys and media manipulation, all aimed at damaging plaintiffs’ reputation and business,” the complaint alleges.
“After plaintiffs refused to pay any money, defendant voluntarily dismissed her lawsuit,” it adds.
In her case filed earlier this year, the woman identified as Jane Doe accused Gomez of legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Among other things, she said Gomez repeatedly offered to send her naked pictures of himself.
“Gomez did not actually work to advance my medical-malpractice lawsuit, as we had agreed on when I retained him as my lawyer, but instead abused the attorney-client relationship in an attempt to seduce me,” her lawsuit said.
The trial attorney rejected the accusations and said the woman was never a formal client. He said she was mentally unstable and looking for a financial benefit by leveling false allegations.
“The truth is that she essentially stalked Mr. Gomez by pretending to seek legal help regarding multiple so-called matters,” the law firm said in a statement. “Once Mr. Gomez caught on to her plot, he proactively stopped communicating with her.”
The woman’s lawsuit went nowhere. According to court records, she filed a request to dismiss the entire case in June. The dismissal was formally recorded last month. Her identity has never been made public in court files.
Gomez has previously been accused of sexual harassment.
In 2021, San Diego Superior Court judges began receiving unsigned accusations from six women alleging that Gomez engaged in unwanted touching, making inappropriate sexual comments and other improper behavior. Gomez denied all of the allegations.
Two years later, Gomez filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, a nonprofit advocacy group he once led that expelled him in the wake of the harassment allegations from 2021.
“This lawsuit tells the story of how a jealous husband, a delusional and ungrateful lawyer embracing an imaginary ‘victim’ narrative and collection of white males with financial motives joined together with CASD to invest a collection of ‘fantastic lies’ and the fraudulently and maliciously attack, bully and harm the largest Latino-founded and one of the most gender-diverse and feminist-forward law firms in California,” he said in the complaint.
According to the lawsuit Gomez filed in 2023 and subsequently withdrew early last year, he was the subject of a State Bar complaint.
Records obtained by The San Diego Union-Tribune last year showed that Gomez had also been targeted in a separate State Bar claim unrelated to harassment allegations, but the disposition of both complaints has not been made clear. There is no public record of discipline against Gomez on the State Bar website.
A case-management conference in the case against Doe has been scheduled for early next year.