Jonathan Majors found guilty of misdemeanor assault in split verdict

Actor Jonathan Majors was found guilty Monday of misdemeanor domestic violence charges stemming from a March altercation with his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari.

In a split verdict, the jury found the “Creed III” actor guilty of one count of assault in the third degree and one count of second degree harassment.

The panel acquitted him of one count of assault and one count of aggravated harassment.

Majors stood and faced the jury as the verdict was read aloud around 3 p.m. Jurors found Majors assaulted Jabbari in the vehicle and harassed her. They acquitted him of charges that he did so intentionally, as opposed to recklessly.

The verdict came after a six-person jury of three men and three women, which began deliberations late Thursday, heard diametrically opposing narratives about the incident at the heart of the case and the couple’s relationship during a two-week trial in Manhattan Criminal Court.

Prosecutors said the March 25 confrontation in the back of a car driving through lower Manhattan was the culmination of a “cruel and manipulative pattern of psychological and physical abuse” Majors inflicted against Jabbari over their 19-month relationship. His lawyers argued his ex-girlfriend was unstable.

When she took the stand, Jabbari, 30, told the jury that Majors violently reacted when she grabbed his cell phone upon seeing a flirtatious text from another woman as the pair took a private car service home from a night out in Brooklyn. She said he twisted her arm and struck a blow to the side of her head as he aggressively maneuvered to retrieve the device. Jurors saw photos of Jabbari’s broken finger and a large gash behind her ear.

Jurors saw CCTV footage of the fracas spilling onto the street by the intersection of Canal and Centre Sts., up the street from the courthouse. It showed Majors pushing Jabbari back into the vehicle as she sought to follow him out. She pursued him on foot for several blocks before they parted ways and then went out for a few hours with a group of strangers who inquired about her well-being.

Jabbari said that Majors had hurt her before and told jurors she grew to fear the actor following frequent blowups in which he could become physically threatening.

Of one incident at his West Hollywood home last year, Jabbari alleged Majors dented walls as he hurled objects at her, shattering glass candles and household objects.

“His face kind of changes when he gets into that place,” she testified. “He’s a big guy, so you just want to step back.”

The driver of the private Escalade where the argument began testified he was looking ahead throughout the encounter and initially thought Jabbari had hit Majors based on what he had heard. He said Majors was throwing Jabbari back into the car “to get rid of her.”

The 34-year-old “Creed III” actor was arrested the morning after the incident when police discovered his then-girlfriend injured on the floor of their walk-in closet after responding to a 911 call Majors made after he arrived home to their Chelsea penthouse from a hotel.

The British choreographer was treated at Bellevue Hospital for a fractured finger and a large cut behind her ear, which she told medics she sustained the night before during an argument with Majors in public. Jurors saw footage of police questioning her at the penthouse. She testified that she didn’t want the actor to get in trouble when she woke up surrounded by NYPD officers.

“I think just things he had told me in the past of not trusting police — and what they would do to him, as a Black man, and I didn’t want to put him in that situation,” Jabbari said, testifying that she felt like it was her fault upon later learning he’d been arrested.

Majors’ defense argued that Jabbari was the abusive one and that she’d fabricated the assault. Lawyer Priya Chaudhry contended the CCTV footage showed Majors trying to escape Jabbari and said he pushed her back into the car to keep her safe from moving traffic. Majors filed a countercomplaint against Jabbari three months after the incident, alleging she assaulted him, but prosecutors found it had no merit.

When Majors’ lawyer grilled Jabbari about initially withholding the assault from authorities, Judge Michael Gaffey allowed prosecutors to introduce text messages from September 2022 appearing to show Majors admitting to assaulting her during a separate incident and trying to convince her not to seek medical attention for a head injury.

As well as scrutinizing Jabbari’s initial interactions with authorities, Majors’ attorney — who cried when delivering her closing argument — picked apart her decision to go to the club. She described her client as a victim of a racist criminal justice system.

“These prosecutors bought her white lies, her big lies, her pretty little lies,” the lawyer said.

But in her closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Kelli Galaway told the jury that Jabbari’s reaction to the assault didn’t change the fact it happened.

She noted Jabbari had not brought the criminal case against Majors — and had, in fact, not wanted him to face charges.

“This case is the people of the State of New York versus Jonathan Majors,” Galaway said. “It is not Grace Jabbari versus Jonathan Majors.”