Jonathan Majors Domestic Violence Accuser Threatened Suicide, Defense Tells Trial; Actor Had Pattern Of Abuse Over Relationship, DA Says – Update

Sean Piccoli and Dominic Patten
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(Editors’ Note: An earlier version of this story said that the Manhattan prosecutors in Jonathan Majors’ domestic violence trial said that accuser Grace Jabbari was a potential suicide risk. It was the defense that said that this morning. We regret the error and have corrected it) Jonathan Majors used cruelty and manipulation to control Grace Jabbari, and when his girlfriend of two years discovered that the acclaimed actor was cheating on her with another woman, the psychological abuse turned physical, the prosecution told a New York City jury today in opening arguments of the actor’s domestic violence trial.

Assistant Manhattan district attorney Michael Perez told jurors Monday that Majors told 911 on March 25 that Jabbari had possibly attempted suicide, which later was part of her evaluation at a local hospital that night. Doctors at Bellevue determined that she was not a suicide risk, which is one of the reasons Gabbari was released that night. In her opening statement later this morning, defense lawyer Priya Chaudhry said that Jabbari did threaten suicide.

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Majors and members of Jabbari’s family were sitting in the courtroom looking on during the opening statements Monday. Jabbari, expected to be called as a witness, was not.

Unsurprisingly, in opening statements from both the prosecution and the defense this morning, it was a tale of two very different incidents.

The Creed III actor left Jabbari with a fractured finger, pain from a twisted arm, and a bloody cut behind one ear while wresting his cellphone back from her on a late-night car ride through Manhattan in the late hours between March 24 and 25, ADA Perez said. A wealth of noise from construction outside the open widows of the courtroom made it hard to hear sometime, until Judge Michale Gaffey finally had the windows closed.

Selected on November 30 out of a pool of 39, a jury of three men and three women plus two alternates will weigh the assault and harassment against Majors in a trial expected to last two weeks. Jabbari, who turned herself in to police in October based on the cross-complaint from Majors, is on a prosecution witness list of more than a dozen people, and is expected to testify.

At present, it is unclear whether Majors will take the stand in his own defense. Having entered a not guilty plea earlier this year, the actor is facing up to a year behind bars if convicted.

In describing the night in question, ADA Perez also told the court that Jabbari had spotted a text on Majors’ cellphone from another woman and grabbed the device. After the driver stopped and the confrontation spilled on to a street in Chinatown, Majors also violently shoved Jabbari back inside their chauffeured ride, throwing her “like a football back into the Escalade,” Perez said.

Unlike the altercation inside the vehicle, the shove was caught on camera, Perez asserted.

More than once, he said, Majors “struck, shoved and otherwise subjected Grace Jabbari to physical contact” with intent to harm and harass her, and video and medical records will back up her account. Perez called the alleged assault the culmination of a relationship rooted in “domestic violence” perpetrated by Majors against Jabbari over their time together, as prosecutors intend to demonstrate.

Majors’ lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, gave a starkly different account of what happened that night.

The defense attorney told the court Monday that “a seconds-long altercation over a text” turned into a night of partying and dancing with strangers at a club for an uninjured Jabbari. Chaudhry added that Jabbari later returned to their apartment alone, while Majors retreating to a hotel room and telling Jabbari their relationship was over.

The lawyer added to the jury that the prosecution will try to “distract you with stories about the months and years prior to that incident” and “things about Jonathan Majors that had nothing to do with what happened in the car.” Looking at the panel, Chaudhry detailed the efforts Majors had made to get where he is in Hollywood and begged then to “end this nightmare for him.”

Majors was arrested in late March at the apartment in Chelsea he shared with Jabbari, after he called 911 to the residence and police asked her what happened. In his opening statement ADA Perez explained that Jabbari was reluctant to divulge what had happened because “the defendant has manipulated her in the past and trained her to stay silent.” He also stated that Jabbari was intimated by Majors presence during the interview with police.

Chaudhry countered that the evidence will show Jabbari — after hours away from Majors that she spent “talking, texting, drinking, dancing, partying” and “crying about her belief that Mr Majors … was unfaithful,” told police she didn’t know what had happened to her, and couldn’t account for her injuries until police asked her if Majors had caused them. “She made these false statements to take away everything he has spent his whole life working for,” Chaudhry said, adding “This is a case about the end of a relationship, not about a crime — at least not one that Mr. Majors committed. This man is innocent.”

Majors arrived wearing a long black coat, black beret and sunglasses. He was accompanied by a handful of people including the actor Meagan Good.  Inside the courtroom, Majors, wearing a dark blazer over a short turtleneck, walked along the first row of seats in the gallery directly behind him, dispensing brief hugs and kisses to supporters.

Before the jury was brought in, all parties agreed  — at the request of the prosecution — to dismiss four of the eight charges against Majors and consolidate  them into the remaining counts. Another round of lawyers’ sparring over evidence followed, with Judge Gaffey placing limits on how much video and audio jurors will get to see and hear.

Judge Gaffey also said that when Jabbari is on the stand, the defense can ask the London-based movement coach whether the DA’s office promised her help with a U.S. work visa in exchange for her cooperation. Gaffey also told Majors’ lawyers, “If the answer is no, you move on.”

Witness testimony is set to begin after lunch. Before then, Judge Gaffey admonished spectators to keep their reactions to themselves, with no “eye-rolling” or “laughing.” It was unclear whether the judge had spotted anyone in the gallery reacting visibly to the opening statements.

It’s a rare misdemeanor case to go to a jury trial, but one with high personal and professional stakes for a defendant whose promising career has essentially ground to a halt. Yet, the fact is as Majors star notaceabily dimmed in the wake of his arrest last sping, and other claims of threatening and violent behavior surfaced his criminal case plodded through months of postponements and pretrial hearings.

Some of the latter took place behind closed doors, with the public denied access to the courtroom last week. That rare-ish move was to hear arguements over material Judge Michael Gaffey called so “prejudicial and inflammatory” toward Majors that he ultimately barred its release and then sealed his ruling on the matter. Sources have told Deadline that the sealed documents at issue contain information on potential past incidents involving the actor both in the U.S. and the UK.

Police on the scene after Majors called 911 found Jabbari with bruising, swelling and a laceration, and arrested the actor. Majors, in a cross-complaint filed in June, said Jabbari flew at him in a jealous rage during a car ride in lower Manhattan on the night of March 25 and that he was trying to defend himself and defuse the confrontation.

Throughout the case, Majors’ legal team has cast him as the victim of racially biased policing and a mismanaged prosecution. Citing texts and videos from that night, Majors’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry said Jabbari’s injuries weren’t serious enough to keep her from going to a nightclub afterward.

During juror screening, Chaudhry reminded the pool of 39 potential jurors that her client is under no obligation to testify. She then asked if anyone would hold it against Majors if he chose not to testify and, if he does, whether anyone would be inclined to disbelieve him just because he’s an actor. No hands went up.

The trial also might pit the prosecution against a law-enforcement colleague: the NYPD detective who recommended that Jabbari be investigated for assaulting Majors. Judge Gaffey has ruled that both Jabbari’s arrest under a so-called “I-card” summons and the detective’s reasons for pursuing a case against Majors’ accuser are fair game for the lawyers and the jury.

While Majors appears in the second season of Disney+’s Loki, he was dropped by management company Entertainment 360 and publicist The Lede Company in April. Previously announced roles for the Emmy-nominated star of Max’s Lovecraft Country dried up, and ad campaigns for the U.S. Army and the eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers were pulled. In October, Disney removed Magazine Dreams, with Majors in a starring performance that was already generating Oscar buzz, from its release schedule.

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