Jonathan Majors, the 34-year-old actor and star of Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, has been found guilty on two charges—and not guilty on two others—in his domestic assault trial. Jurors reached their verdict on Monday, following about four hours of deliberation that took place over the course of three days, The Hollywood Reporter writes. Majors had pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges of assault and harassment stemming from an alleged domestic dispute with ex Grace Jabbari in March.
The jury convicted the actor on charges of reckless assault in the third degree and harassment, but found him not guilty of intentional assault in the third degree and aggravated harassment in the second degree. The harassment charge is the most minor offense; the other three are misdemeanors. Majors faces up to a year in jail; he will be sentenced on February 6.
Majors was arrested on March 25 after Jabbari, who was his girlfriend at the time, was treated at a hospital with “minor injuries to her head and neck,” the NYPD said in a statement. Prosecutors say Jabbari was riding in the back of a vehicle with Majors when she grabbed his phone from him after seeing a text message that said, “Wish I was kissing you right now,” sent by a woman listed in the actor’s phone as “Cleopatra.”
In June, Majors filed a counter domestic incident report against his accuser as the case progressed to trial. As first reported by Insider in June, he alleged to police that she was “drunk and hysterical” the night of the incident and caused pain and bleeding after scratching and slapping him. The NYPD arrested Jabbari, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to pursue the case because it lacked “prosecutorial merit,” the office said in a statement in October.
At the trial’s opening, prosecutors alleged that Majors and Jabbari, who met on the set of Quantumania, enjoyed a brief “honeymoon phase” before the “defendant’s true self emerged.” Majors had a “cruel and manipulative pattern of psychological and physical abuse that culminated in the end of their relationship,” the prosecution said, as reported by The Messenger. In turn, Majors’s defense team, led by attorney Priya Chaudhry, argued that Jabbari’s allegations were fueled by “revenge” and made “to ruin Mr. Majors and take away everything he spent his life working for.”
Over the course of the trial, a glimpse into the volatile nature of Majors and Jabbari’s relationship was revealed via security- and traffic-cam video of the pair leaving their car after the alleged altercation, as well as photos of Jabbari’s fractured finger and a cut behind her ear, and the 911 call Majors placed to authorities the morning after the alleged assault, in which he tells police that his ex had “attempted suicide, I think.” In her closing statements, Majors’s attorney said that the actor’s “fear of what happens when a Black man in America calls 911 came true.”
Judge Michael Gaffey also allowed public disclosure of texts and audio recording from a previous argument between the couple in September 2022. In the texts, Majors appears to dissuade Jabbari from going to the hospital after she has suffered an injury to her head. “I fear you have no perspective of what could happen if you go to the hospital,” a text from Majors to Jabbari reads. “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.” Majors also appears to threaten to kill himself in the text conversation, writing, “I’m a monster. A horrible man. Not capable of love. I am killing myself soon. I’ve already put things in motion.” In the audio recording, Majors can be heard raising his voice and telling Jabbari she “has to be of a certain mindset to support” him, just as Coretta Scott King supported Martin Luther King Jr. and Michelle Obama stood by Barack Obama.
Savannah Walsh
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