MANHATTAN (CN) – Lawyers for actor Jonathan Majors began mounted their entire defense case on Wednesday after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office formally concluded its direct prosecution case against the Marvel star in the morning.
Majors ultimately opted not to testify in his own defense. His lawyers rested their case after calling three witnesses, a NYPD detective, a Connecticut doctor and his agent.
Closing arguments and deliberations are set to begin Thursday morning.
After seven days of presenting witness testimony and evidence to jurors in Manhattan Criminal Court, the New York City prosecutors, who accuse Majors of injuring his ex-girlfriend in the backseat of a hired Escalade taxi last spring, rested their early Wednesday.
Majors’ attorneys immediately moved to dismiss the prosecution’s trial case for a “lack of evidence,” in light of purportedly exonerating testimony from the taxi driver who was the sole witness to the charged assault — but the motion was dismissed hastily by Judge Michael Gaffey, who found the district attorney’s office had “presented competent evidence.”
The prosecution’s final witness in the case was Josie Torielli, a trauma therapist and licensed clinical social worker, whom Judge Gaffey allowed to testify as an expert in "the dynamics of domestic violence” in the context of intimate partner relationships — over Majors' defense team's objection.
Beginning Tuesday afternoon, Torielli explained to jurors that intimate partner violence isn't limited to physical abuse; it includes “sexual violence, emotional and psychological violence, financial violence.”
Earlier on Tuesday prosecutors played audio from Majors’ 911 call the morning after the incident with Jabbari, after he returned to his penthouse apartment in Chelsea and found her unresponsive and half-naked on the heated floor of bathroom adjoining their bedroom.
On the call, Majors sounded calm and concerned as he told the emergency operator that his “ex-partner” was unconscious, and that he suspected that she had overdosed or was trying to commit suicide.
Majors explains on the 911 call that he hadn’t been able to get to the part of the apartment where Jabbari was sleeping on the floor, and only got in there with the combined efforts of the building’s doorman and handyman.
NYPD Sergeant Bryan Hanson, one of the officers who responded to Majors' 911 call, testified as a prosecution witness that he recalled seeing blood on the comforter on the bed in Majors' apartment — but conceded that he couldn't identify any blood in his review of videos from police body-worn cameras.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office accused Majors in a set of misdemeanor charges of assaulting Jabbari after she read a romantic text message sent to his phone by another woman. Prosecutors claim Majors grabbed Jabbari’s hand with such force he fractured one of her fingers, then pulled her arm behind her back and struck her on the side of the head.
On Wednesday, Majors’ defense called Dr. Tammy Weiner, an emergency medicine physician in Danbury, Connecticut, who reviewed X-rays of Jabbari's finger and photographs of her injuries.
Weiner testified she did not see evidence in her review of Jabbari’s injuries of “any type of twisting injury to the hand or other fingers.” She said fracture spirals around the bones from twisting injuries resembled stripes on a candy cane.
The judge sustained repeated objections to Majors’ attorney Priya Chaudhry's questions phrased to get the doctor to reply as to whether Jabbari’s fractured finger could have been caused by Majors prying her fingers off his cell phone, as alleged by prosecutors.
“Is the break in Ms. Jabbari’s finger consistent with your finger being twisted?” Chaudhry attempted to ask. She also asked, “In your medical opinion, how did Ms. Jabbari sustain this fracture to her finger?” and “How likely is it that the fracture to her finger was sustained by twisting?” which, too, were shut down by the judge.
Jabbari, a 30-year-old British dancer choreographer, documented her bruised finger and reddened ear in text messages and photos she sent to a friend, which were presented at trial last week.
The "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" star sat austerely throughout his ex-girlfriend’s testimony last week, but appeared to avert his gaze from the photos of injuries to her finger and ear, which elicited wincing from some jurors.
Majors’ defense lawyers counter that he was the actual victim of the domestic altercation that night and argued in opening remarks last week that Jabbari pressed charges only as revenge for his ending their relationship.
Majors’ lawyers have not made clear whether or not the actor will testify in his own defense.
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