Jonathan Majors Found Guilty of Assault and Harassment in Split Verdict

Jonathan Majors was found guilty at trial of misdemeanor assault.

In a split verdict, Majors, 34, was found guilty of two counts: misdemeanor assault in the third degree, recklessly causing bodily harm, and harassment in the second degree, a misdemeanor. The actor was acquitted of third-degree assault with intent to cause bodily harm and second-degree aggravated harassment.

The charges were related to an alleged fight between him and his ex-girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, that spilled into the streets of Manhattan’s Chinatown in March.

Rising to confront the actor, Foreperson Rebecca Martinez declared Majors “not guilty” of the first charge. Majors, who was at the defense table, kept his head down until she found him guilty of the second. He watched her until the end of the charge. Then each of the other five jurors – two other women and three men – each separately told the judge that they agreed with the verdict.

The six-member jury returned at 2:25 p.m. Monday with the message, “We, the jury, have reached a verdict,” after about six hours and 15 minutes of deliberations, which began Thursday.

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

Majors faces up to a year in prison when he is sentenced on Feb. 6, although a judge could opt for probation or treatment instead of jail time. The judge reminded him that the protective order remained in place and he could have no contact with Jabbari or he could face additional charges.

The March allegations put a damper on the actor’s rising stardom, which landed Majors opposite Michael B. Jordan in the lead role in the early 2023 film Belief III and as the villain Kang the Conqueror in Marvel Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Disney is highly anticipated Dreams magazine, in which Majors plays an amateur bodybuilder, even generated buzz at the Oscars, before the studio pulled the film from the slate.

Jonathan Majors and Grace Jabbari.

Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

The trial in Manhattan Criminal Court, which lasted more than two weeks, included 12 witnesses brought to the stand by Manhattan prosecutors and three more by the defense.

During four days of testimony at the start of the trial, Jabbari told the jury that her boyfriend of more than a year and a half often flew into “rage and aggression” during their relationship, and that they got into a physical altercation in March, leading to until his arrest.

Describing that night, Jabbari said that after a night out, the couple were in a rental car, returning to the penthouse they shared, when she oversaw a flirtatious text message from another woman on Majors’ phone. She said that she snatched the phone from his hands, and that in response Majors twisted her right hand. As she bent her body “just trying to protect herself”, she said she felt a “really hard blow to the head” that “caught me”.

The next day, Majors, returning from the hotel, returned to the penthouse they shared to a locked bedroom door, according to a later 911 audio recording entered into evidence and reviewed by the jury on the second day of deliberations Friday afternoon.

In the call, Majors told the 911 dispatcher that he did not know what happened to Jabbari.

“She is unconscious,” Majors said in an audio recording of the call obtained by PEOPLE. “The goal is from the bottom down. He has a tracksuit. She is my ex-partner. We broke up. I’m back. She was texting me insinuating that.”

Police arrived at the couple’s Manhattan penthouse a few minutes later.

Jabbari went to the hospital and was treated for a hairline fracture on her middle finger and a cut on her ear.

Majors was arrested in his living room.

“This is not a he-said-she-said case,” Assistant District Attorney Kelli Galaway told the jury in closing arguments Thursday afternoon. “This is what she said-plus.”

As part of her closing arguments, Galaway screened alleged text messages between Majors and Jabbari from September 2022 — months before the alleged incident — in which Majors — calling himself a “monster and a horrible man” — appeared to admit to physically assaulting Jabbari and threatened to kill himself if he went to the hospital for a head injury.

“Context,” Galaway said as the jury turned to the messages.

That earlier incident of alleged abuse had previously been ruled inadmissible, but in lengthy cross-examination of Jabbari, which presiding judge Michael Gaffey said lacked specificity, the judge said the defense had opened the door for prosecutors to share with the jury text messages related to that previous incident.

Text messages entered into evidence at the trial of Jonathan Majors indicate that the actor had already admitted to physically assaulting Grace Jabbari prior to the March 2023 incident, Exhibit 18.

NY District Attorney

“I’m afraid you don’t have any perspective on what could happen if you go to the hospital,” Majors texted Jabbari after that earlier alleged incident, according to the text messages. “They’re going to ask you questions, and since I don’t think you’re really protecting us, that could lead to an investigation even if you’re lying and they suspect something.”

In the text messages – which Jabbari showed to the jury and read into the record during the trial – Jabbari appeared to assure Majors that she would not blame him for allegedly causing the injury to her head.

“I’m going to tell the doctor I hit my head,” Jabbari told Majors in text messages. She cried as she read the message in court.

When Jabbari couldn’t continue through her tears, Galaway took over reading the text: “I’m going to tell the doctor I hit my head, if I leave I’ll give him another day, but I can’t sleep and I need some stronger painkillers. That’s all. Why would I want to tell them what really happened when it’s clear I want to be with you.”

Some members of the jury appeared sympathetic to Majors at times during the trial. Lakeisha Johnson, the only black person on the jury, said “correct” several times during Chaudhry’s cross-examination of Jabbari.

Jonathan Majors.

AP Photo/Steven Hirsch, pool

And in closing arguments, Priya Chaudhry, one of Majors’ defense attorneys, tried to refocus the case on race, countering that police thought Majors was guilty because he was a black man accused by his white ex.

“They looked at Mr. Majors and made a decision,” Chaudhry said of the responding officers. They decided who was the victim and who was the criminal.

She added that a worried Majors, knowing what calling 911 could mean, called anyway and “his fear of what happens when a black man in America calls 911 came true.”

As Chaudhry, Majors and current girlfriend Meagan Good – who attended the trial every day – all broke down in tears, his lawyer added: “Jonathan Majors is innocent.”

The actor’s legal problems may not be over yet. Majors’ other ex-partners have also reportedly been abusive, dating back nearly a decade.

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