Jonathan Majors Found Guilty in Domestic Violence Trial

Jonathan Majors was found guilty on Monday on two of four charges in trial for his alleged assault against his ex-partner, Grace Jabbari.

The Marvel actor, once a promising and fast-rising Hollywood star, was accused of assaulting his Jabbari during a March domestic dispute in New York City.

A Manhattan jury found Majors guilty of 3rd-degree assault, recklessly causing physical injury, and 2nd-degree harassment, but acquitted him on two other counts of assault and aggravated harassment.

Judge Michael Gaffey set a sentencing date of February 6. Majors face up to a year in jail.

The two-week-long trial resumed in a lower Manhattan courtroom as the six-person jury requested to hear the definition of harassment in the second degree, which is when a person is guilty of “intent to harass, annoy or alarm” another person; “he or she strikes, shoves, kicks or otherwise subjects such other person to physical contact, or attempts or threatens to do the same.” 

Before making its verdict, the jury also asked to review surveillance footage as well as testimony from a woman who attended a nightclub with Jabbari after the alleged assault.

In March, the actor was arrested in New York City after he allegedly assaulted Jabbari in the backseat of a private vehicle. Jabbari, a choreographer who met Majors on the set of Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” testified she grabbed the actor’s phone after seeing a text message from another woman that read, “Wish I were kissing you right now.” 

She described in her testimony that as Majors attempted to retrieve his phone, she felt “a hard blow” across her head that resulted in bruising, swelling, and substantial pain.

Prosecutor Kelli Galloway alleges that Majors was manipulative and controlling throughout their two-year relationship, which culminated on March 25 after the altercation in the car. 

Jury members were shown prior text messages between Jabbari and Majors where he had threatened suicide over a disagreement and dissuaded his ex-girlfriend from going to the hospital to treat a head wound.

Jabbari, 30, testified she did not want to involve the police. It was Majors, not Jabbari, who called 911 the next morning out of concern for Jabbari’s mental state, according to Chaudhry. 

Majors had spent the prior night in a hotel and returned to their Chelsea residence to find Jabbari asleep on the floor.

“What this really boils down to is four simple words: control, domination, manipulation and abuse,” Galloway told the jury in her closing statement. “[Those are the] tactics used by those who commit domestic violence against partners, against Grace.”

Majors’ defense attorney Priya Chaudhry has alleged that it was Jabbari who assaulted Majors in the vehicle that night, and not the other way around. 

The defense also argued that Jabbari fabricated the allegations to get back at Majors after their breakup. In her closing argument, Chaudhry called Jabbari a “liar” who “bends reality.”

The driver who was in the car on the night of the alleged incident testified, through an Urdu interpreter, last week that Majors “was not doing anything” to Jabbari in the vehicle. 

While Majors was trying to get out of the car, he was “trying to throw her in,” the driver told jurors. “I do remember [Majors] was pushing her back into the car to get rid of her.”

The defense argued that Majors’ career in Hollywood had been on the rise before the arrest. The Emmy-nominated actor appeared in two 2023 tentpoles, “Ant-Man 3” and “Creed III”, as well as the indie “Magazine Dreams,” which was acquired by Searchlight Pictures at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. 

The studio removed the project from its release schedule in the wake of the allegations.

As part of the fallout, he’s been dropped by his PR team and management and cut from the movie “The Man in My Basement.” Majors still has a major role, as the villainous Kang the Conqueror, in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.