Jonathan Majorshas been found guilty in hismisdemeanorassault trial.
In a split verdict, Majors, 34, was found guilty of two charges: misdemeanor assault in the third degree, recklessly causing physical injury as well asharassment in the second degree, which is a violation. The actor was found not guilty of misdemeanor assault in the third degree with intent to cause physical injury and misdemeanor aggravated harassment in the second degree.
The charges were in connection with analleged fightbetween him and hisformer girlfriend,Grace Jabbari, that spilled onto the streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood in March.
Rising to face the actor, Foreperson Rebecca Martinez pronounced Majors “not guilty” of the first charge. Majors, who stood at the defense table, remained with his head down until she declared him guilty of the second. He watched her for the remainder of the charges. Then, each of the other five jurors — two other women and three men — each separately told the judge that they had agreed to the verdict.
The six-person jury came back Monday at 2:25 p.m. with a note: “We the jury have reached a verdict,” following about six hours and 15 minutes of deliberations, which began Thursday.
AP Photo/Seth Wenig
Majors faces up to a year in jail when he is sentenced on Feb. 6, though the judge could opt for probation or treatment instead of prison time. The judge reminded him that a protection order remains in effect and he cannot have contact with Jabbari or could face additional charges.
The March charges puta halt to the actor’s rising stardom, which in the early part of 2023 saw Majors starringalongside Michael B. JordaninCreed IIIand as the villainous Kang the Conqueror in Marvel’sAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Disney’s highly anticipatedMagazine Dreams,starring Majors as an amateur bodybuilder, had even generated Oscar buzz, before the studiopulled the film from its release roster.
Jonathan Majors and Grace Jabbari.Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
Over four days of testimony at the start of trial, Jabbari told the jury that her boyfriend of more than a year and a half had often slipped into “rage and aggression”during their relationship, and that in March they had gotten into a physical altercation, leading to his arrest.
Describingthat night, Jabbari said that after an evening out, the couple wasinside a hired car, heading back to the penthouse they shared, when she had overseen a flirtatious text message from another woman on Majors’s phone. She said she had snatched the phone from his hands, and that in response Majors had twisted her right arm. As she curled her body “just trying to protect myself,” she said she felt “a really hard blow against my head" that “took me aback.”
In the call Majorstold the 911 dispatcherthat he did not know what had happened to Jabbari.
Police arrived at the couple’s Manhattan penthouse minutes later.
Jabbari went to the hospital and was treated for a hairline fracture to a bone in her middle finger and a cut to her ear.
Majors was arrested in his living room.
“This is not a he said–she said case,” Assistant District Attorney Kelli Galaway told the jury in closing statements Thursday afternoon. “This is a she said-plus.”
As part of her closing statements, Galaway flashed on a screen alleged text messages between Majors and Jabbari from September 2022 — months before the charged incident — in which Majors — calling himself “a monster and horrible man” —appears to admit to physically attacking Jabbariandthreatening to kill himselfif she went to the hospital for an injury to her head.
“Context,” Galaway said as the jury turned toward the messages.
That earlier incident of alleged abuse had previously been ruled inadmissible, but, in a lengthycross-examination of Jabbari, which presiding Judge Michael Gaffey had saidlacked specificity, the judge said the defense opened the door to prosecutors being able to share with the jury text messages regarding that prior incident.
Text messages entered into evidence in Jonathan Majors’s trial suggested that the actor had previously acknowledged physically attacking Grace Jabbari prior to the March 2023 incident, Exhibit 18.District Attorney of NY
District Attorney of NY
“I fear you have no perspective of what could happen if you go to the hospital,” Majors had texted Jabbari following that earlier alleged incident, according to the text messages. “They will ask you questions and as I don’t think you actually protect us it could lead to an investigation even if you do lie and they suspect something.”
“I will tell the doctor I bumped my head,” Jabbari told Majors in the text messages. She cried as she read aloud the message in court.
When Jabbari was unable to continue through her tears, Galaway took over reading the texts: “I will tell the doctor I bumped my head, if I go, I’m going to give it one more day, but I can’t sleep and I need some stronger pain killers. That’s all. Why would I want to tell them what really happened when it’s clear I want to be with you."
Some members of the jury had at times throughout the trial appeared sympathetic to Majors. Lakeisha Johnson, the only Black person on the jury, had mouthed repeatedly “that’s right,” during Chaudhry’s cross-examination of Jabbari.
Jonathan Majors.AP Photo/Steven Hirsch, Pool
AP Photo/Steven Hirsch, Pool
“They took a look at Mr. Majors and made up their minds,” Chaudhry said of the responding police officers. “They decided who was the victim and who was the criminal.”
She added that knowing what calling 911 could mean, a concerned Majors had dialed anyway and “his fear of what happens when a Black man in America calls 911 came true.”
Then as Chaudhry, Majors andcurrent girlfriendMeagan Good— whoattended the trial daily— allbroke into tears, his lawyer added: “Jonathan Majors is innocent.”
The actor’s legal troubles may not be over. Other former partners of Majors havealso reportedly alleged abuse, going back nearly a decade.
source: people.com
