MANHATTAN (CN) — A panel of New York City jurors heard opening arguments on Monday morning in the trial of “Creed III” actor Jonathan Majors, who faces misdemeanor domestic violence charges.
Manhattan prosecutors claim the breakout star of the 2019 drama “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” injured his ex-girlfriend, British choreographer Grace Jabbari, during a domestic altercation in an Escalade taxi in the city last spring.
"On March 25, 2023, the defendant Jonathan Majors committed domestic violence against his then-romantic partner, Grace Jabbari,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Perez told the panel of six jurors and two alternates.
A fight broke out between Majors and Jabbari in a cab heading over the Manhattan Bridge from Brooklyn after Jabbari saw a text on his phone from a contact named "Cleopatra," Perez said.
The body of the text message included a link to the 1995 D'Angelo neo-soul hit "Lady," and said, "I wish I was kissing you right now," Perez told jurors. When Majors attempted to yank the phone back from his then-girlfriend, he pulled her finger, twisted her arm behind her back and hit her in the face.
After the pair got out of the SUV, prosecutors claim, he aggressively threw her back inside.
Majors was arrested after NYPD officers responded to a Majors’ call and found Jabbari on the floor of a walk-in closet in his Chelsea apartment, unconscious and half-naked with injuries to her head and neck.
“Those injuries occurred inside the Escalade at the hands of the defendant,” the prosecutor said.
The driver of the black for-hire Escalade that night will testify for the prosecution’s case that Majors "threw Grace Jabbari like a football,” Perez told jurors. He characterized the incident as part of a pattern of abusive manipulation by Majors after the honeymoon period of their relationship had cooled off.
Majors attended the trial’s opening on Monday. He arrived in a beret and sunglasses, toting his signature self-help ceramic cup and gold-edged bible, accompanied by his current girlfriend, “Roll Bounce” actress Meagan Good.
His attorneys have framed his defense case on the assertion that it was Jabbari, enraged in the taxi after she saw the texts messages from another woman, who “slapped, clawed and scratched” Majors.
“This is a case about the end of a relationship, not a crime — at least not one that Mr. Majors committed," Majors’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry told jurors on Monday afternoon.
Chaudhry said he plans to show evidence that Jabbari went on a bender after the incident in the Escalade and then proceeded to a booze-fueled Saturday night that found her dancing at Loosie's nightclub under the Moxy Lower East Side hotel.
“Within minutes, the bloodied person goes to a hotel to hide, and the other one goes clubbing for hours: dancing, drinking, doing shots, buying expensive champagne, holding hands with strangers… passing notes to the DJ under strobe light,” she said.
Chaudhry told jurors that Jabbari’s Lower Manhattan bacchanalia was unhindered by the injuries she later claims were caused by Major’s violent assault: “Not a speck of blood on her white blouse,” she said. “Not a mark on her fair face.
“No bruising, swelling, or even apparent discomfort to the finger she now claims Mr. Majors broke three hours earlier,” Majors’ lawyer said.
“And despite calling over a dozen witnesses, the People will be unable to prove their case," Chaudhry also said. "There is no evidence, nobody else and nothing else will corroborate Ms. Jabbari’s false claims.”
Jabbari, the victim-witness in the case, also attended the trial’s opening arguments on Monday, wearing an all-black outfit, sitting on the Manhattan District Attorney’s side of the courtroom gallery.
Majors, a Yale School of Drama graduate, faces up to a year in jail if convicted on the multiple misdemeanor counts of assault and aggravated harassment.
Just prior to the voir dire portion of the jury selection process last week, Majors stood to introduce himself to the pool of potential jurors.
Wearing a dark gray, double-breasted suit, he clasped his hands together in prayer-like gesture, nodded, and then pressed his left hand over his heart.
At least four women in the pool of approximately forty prospective jurors said they were already familiar with Majors' case from media coverage and couldn't be impartial.
“I’ve seen the videos of Grace dancing at the club after he allegedly assaulted her,” a silver-haired woman in the front of the courtroom gallery told the judge.
“We’ll find a case for you that you might be more comfortable with,” Judge Michael Gaffey responded.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
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