Jonathan Majors. Photo: AFP / MICHAEL TRAN
By Jack Queen, for Reuters
Actor Jonathan Majors was found guilty by a New York jury on Monday on charges the Marvel star attacked his ex-girlfriend in the back of a car.
Majors, seen as one of the future faces of Disney's Marvel superhero franchise until the allegations stalled his rapid rise, had been charged with two counts of assault and two counts of harassment, all misdemeanors.
The jury of six convicted him on one count of assault and one count of harassment, and acquitted him of the other charges. The verdict followed a two-week trial in state court in Manhattan.
Majors, dressed in a gray suit, stood and faced the jury as the foreperson read the verdict. He pursed his lips and cast his face down when the first conviction was read but otherwise showed little reaction.
His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Prosecutors said Majors assaulted his then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari in a hired car in Manhattan in March, leaving her with a broken finger and swollen arm and ear. He was charged with two assault counts and two harassment counts, all misdemeanors.
Jabbari said over four days of testimony that Majors attacked her after she grabbed his phone upon seeing a text from another woman. She also described his "violent temper" and other incidents where he "exploded" in anger.
"She had shaped herself around the defendant, to cater to his personality, to avoid him being angry with her," prosecutor Kelli Galaway said during closing arguments on Thursday.
Majors' lawyer sought to flip the script, claiming it was Jabbari who victimised Majors by attacking him in the car and then falsely accusing him of assault after he broke up with her.
"You are here to end this nightmare for Jonathan Majors," lawyer Priya Chaudhry said through tears during her closing argument.
Majors filed his own complaint against Jabbari, prompting her arrest on assault charges in October. But the Manhattan District Attorney's Office later closed the case because it "lacks prosecutorial merit".
He starred in the 2019 film 'The Last Black Man in San Francisco' before landing top billing in 'Creed III' and Marvel's 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania'.
Majors was dropped by his management company, public relations firm and several advertisers after his arrest, and Disney removed his upcoming film 'Magazine Dreams' from its release schedule.
This story was originally published on https://www.reuters.com/legal/ny-jury-deliberating-jonathan-majors-assault-case-2023-12-18/ Reuters].
