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Majors Found Guilty of Assault and Harassment in Split Verdict
December 19, 2023 12:24 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostMajors has been found guilty in a split verdict.
Majors was found guilty of two charges: misdemeanor assault in the third degree, recklessly causing physical injury as well as harassment in the second degree, which is a violation. The actor was found not guilty of misdemeanor assault in the third degree with intent to cause physical injury and misdemeanor aggravated harassment in the second degree.
Read the full story here.
Majors's Driver Claims Accuser Was 'Doing Everything' During Alleged Attack
December 11, 2023 05:06 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostThe man who drove Majors and Jabbari on the night of the former couple's alleged fight took the stand Monday, speaking through an Urdu interpreter.
In court Monday, Naveed Sarwar said the actor was "not doing anything,” referencing a set of interactions between the couple in the car that night. Then of Jabbari, he said: “She was doing everything."
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Majors Appears to Admit Physically Attacking Ex
December 08, 2023 04:41 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostIn text messages between Majors and accuser Jabbari, the Marvel actor appears to admit to physical violence against his now-ex — six months Majors' March arrest and charge with assault in a separate domestic violence case.
“I fear you have no perspective of what could happen if you go to the hospital,” Majors texted Jabbari in September 2022. “They will ask you questions, and as I don’t think you actually protect us, it could lead to an investigation even if you do lie, and they suspect something.”
In that message, Majors also stated “it’s just fake" — but based on the messages put into evidence, it was not clear what he was calling "fake" and no context was provided in court.
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Majors' Accuser to Continue Testimony Tomorrow: "I'm Going to Be Sick"
December 07, 2023 05:21 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostJabbari will continue a fourth day of testimony Friday. Her cross-examination, which concluded this afternoon, extended about seven and a half hours.
Marked by well over 50 sustained objections in a line of questioning that the judge has told the defense lacks specificity, at one point hours into surveillance footage, Jabbari told the defense lawyer: “I’m going to be sick.”
Jabbari will start re-direct with prosecutors in the morning.
Manhattan prosecutors have said that after Jabbari concludes testifying, they expect to call about a dozen more witnesses to Majors’s misdemeanor assault trial, which is anticipated to last weeks.
Arriving to the courthouse in a white coat with blue florals over a red dress emblazoned with green and gold patterned florals, white fur cap, metallic gold backpack and matching gold sneakers, Majors’s defense lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, twice made Jabbari cry, with the young woman fleeing through a side door, her sobs audible from behind closed doors.
Much of the day on cross-examination was spent reviewing video surveillance footage, Jabbari often crying as she saw the clips, and Majors watching intently, sometimes hunched in the direction of the screen.
In one instance that reduced Jabbari to tears, Chaudhry had queued up body-worn camera footage from a police officer who found Jabbari back at the apartment she then shared with Majors the day after the alleged attack. The clip was played for Jabbari on a laptop with headphones.
Jabbari cried while watching the footage, which jurors and the public could not see or hear, covering her eyes with her hands and looking to the ceiling. “I really don’t want to watch this,” she said.
Then, standing and apologizing to the judge, she excused herself for a few minutes. Majors’s mother pursed her lips.
Returning, Jabbari told the defense lawyer multiple times: “I don’t want to watch the video.”
The video was played again: once on the laptop just for her, which Jabbari watched, touching her eyes as tears streamed down her face and then again loudly in court for the jury.
Then, the body-worn footage was introduced into evidence by the defense and played loudly for the courtroom. The video depicted Jabbari on the floor of the penthouse she had then shared with Majors, covered in a multi-colored checkered blanket the day after the alleged attack.
In the video, she could be heard saying she had been sick “in the sheets which is disgusting.”
Turned away from the video, Jabbari covered her face. Facing the screen, Majors watched the footage, eyebrows raised.
One female juror nodded along with the defense, mumbling and mouthing repeatedly “that’s right,” to Chaudhry’s questions about the body worn camera footage.
Majors’s Accuser Watches Videos of Herself Dancing in Nightclub Within Hours of Alleged Attack
December 07, 2023 01:52 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostIn video surveillance that Majors’s defense team presented to the jury Thursday afternoon, Jabbari is seen walking into Loosie's Nightclub within hours of the alleged attack by Majors in March. Jabbari was surrounded by a group of strangers she came upon during the former couple’s altercation.
AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
In court, Jabbari — dressed in a black turtleneck sweater with white polka dots and her blond hair pulled into a ponytail — watched grainy black and white video surveillance footage of her purchasing a bottle of champagne for the group with the credit card Majors had previously given his live-in girlfriend.
In additional footage from the nightclub shown to the jury — some of it in color — Jabbari is seen dancing with the new friends, but “not very well” the professional dancer testified with a laugh.
“I wasn’t focusing on pain, I was just trying to have a nice time,” Jabbari, who has testified that her dancing career gives her a high pain tolerance, said in cross-examination of being able to dance after the alleged attack.
“I was choosing not to focus on it,” she also said of the pain, noting repeatedly throughout her three days of testimony that she was mostly focused on the pain of Majors’s infidelity, earlier telling prosecutors: “I was only thinking about my heart.”
As the video played, Priya Chaudhry, one of Majors’s defense lawyers, said Jabbari took a glass of champagne and a cigarette to the dance floor. (Jabbari disagreed with the description but said she did see herself taking a drag of a cigarette at another point in the video.)
In other clips of the footage, Chaudhry claimed Jabbari can be seen hitting her head – which was also allegedly injured in the altercation with Majors – on the DJ roof. (Jabbari disagreed: “I did not.”)
At another moment, Chaudhry said Jabbari bumped into the wall after several drinks at the nightclub. (“I brushed past it,” Jabbari testified.)
Chaudhry had released some of the nightclub footage to the press ahead of the trial, and, during jury selection several potential jurors had said they had seen the footage and would not be able to deliberate fairly based on what they had seen. None of those potential jurors were selected for trial.
Judge Reminds Majors to Maintain Order of Protection
December 06, 2023 05:12 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostDuring court Wednesday, Judge Michael Gaffey told Majors to continue to honor the temporary order of protection that was granted back in April in regards to ex-girlfriend Jabbari, who accused him of assault.
"Yes, your honor," the actor said. The judge said, "I know you're going to abide by it as you have for the [entirety] of the case."
Jabbari Says ‘It’s Been Really Hard, the Show of It All’
December 06, 2023 02:21 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostJabbari cried through much of her two-day testimony, dabbing her face with a tissue as she described a series of allegedly abusive interactions over the course of their 19-month relationship.
BrosNYC / BACKGRID
She recalled injuries, waking up to find blood behind her ear hours after she claimed the actor struck a blow against her head. She testified she learned of Majors’s arrest while hospitalized following the alleged attack and getting a splint put on her finger.
“I felt like it was my fault,” Jabbari said, adding through tears: “I felt like I should have just lied so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”
Though she said she had not asked police to bring charges against Majors, police’s arrest of the Marvel actor made headlines. And, months later, Majors filed a cross-complaint against Jabbari – alleging that she had attacked him that March night, not the other way around – leading to her arrest in October for a case that was not prosecuted and has since been sealed.
Some 30 or 40 reporters with cameras were standing outside the police precinct that day, Jabbari told the jury, placing her once again in the spotlight.
“There’s just been a lot of unwanted attention about a very difficult period of my life,” Jabbari said on the stand, noting that as a result she had felt obligated to hash through details with much of her family, over things “I’d rather keep private.”
“I’m a very private person,” she said. “It’s been really hard, the show of it all. It feels like the abuse I was in hasn’t ended.”
Jabbari Testifies That Majors ‘Knows What He’s Done'
December 06, 2023 11:52 AM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostJabbari, Majors’ ex and accuser, took the stand for her second day of testimony Wednesday. “He knows what he’s done: He’s cheated on me, he’s attacked me,” Jabbari told the jury Wednesday morning, referencing the alleged March attack on her by the actor.
Jabbari said the morning after their alleged fight — in which she says Majors twisted her arm, fractured her finger and slapped her hard across the face after she discovered his alleged infidelity — she reached out to him, wanting “closure.”
“I think I’d made a really clear determination in my mind that this was not a good relationship,” she said, adding of her state of mind at the time: “And I don’t ever want to see him again, but we’re adults we should talk this through.”
“I just thought I’m getting out of here.” Overwhelmed by the idea of packing up from the penthouse she had just moved into with Majors from London, and feeling pain and “really drained,” Jabbari said she fell asleep.
But first, she said, she locked their bedroom door “because I know the defendant," adding, “in order to feel safe, I needed everything locked.”
Jabbari said she woke up on the floor, surrounded by emergency personnel who had been called by Majors who could not get inside. She recalled them asking her what had happened, and how she was afraid to say too much with Majors in the next room.
“I alluded to it in the safest way I felt possible,” she said, adding through tears, “I just wanted to say help me, please.” Jabbari, who is White, said she had not reported past incidents of violence because she knew Majors to be “not trusting of police as a Black man, and I didn’t want to put him in that position.”
But this time, emergency personnel took photos of her injuries and admitted her to the hospital because “they believed I wanted to hurt myself," she testified. Majors, who had called 911, was subsequently arrested.
“I loved him still, it was so confusing and I didn’t want to get him in trouble,” she said of not describing the alleged attack to law enforcement at first.
Describing how she had learned of Majors’ arrest while she was at the hospital getting a splint put on her finger: “I just felt really sad, I felt like it was my fault,” she told the jury. “I felt like I should have just lied so he wouldn’t get in trouble.”
AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews
Jabbari Recounts Alleged March 2023 Incident in Testimony
December 05, 2023 05:10 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostJabbari testified that on that March night, she grabbed Majors’s phone from his hand to more clearly read a message from another woman.
She was leaning against the shoulder of her then-boyfriend Majors, she testified Tuesday afternoon, as they were leaving dinner in a hired car when she allegedly saw a message pop onto the actor’s phone: first a “romantic” song by D’Angelo, then the message “I wish I were kissing you.”
“It’s not what it seems, baby,” Jabbari claimed Majors told her. “Baby, it’s not what it seems.”
Jabbari testified that she grabbed Majors’ phone from his hand to more clearly read the message from the other woman.
But, in the moments that followed, Jabbari said, she felt the actor behind her and “what I knew to be the weight of him on top of me as he tried to pry the phone from my fingers.”
She alleged that he twisted her right arm and as she curled her body “just trying to protect myself,” she said she felt “a really hard blow against my head” that “took me aback.”
Majors has maintained his innocence from the beginning and entered a plea of not guilty to all charges through his lawyers last week.
Jabbari Testifies About 'Overwhelming,' 'Fast' Relationship with Majors After Meeting on Marvel Movie Set
December 05, 2023 04:17 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostThe former couple met on the set of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, for which Jabbari, a professional dancer, told the jury she had been employed as the on-set movement director in 2021. Majors, who played the villain in the Marvel film, struck up a conversation with Jabbari and suggested she show him around the London area, Jabbari testified.
Later, she said, his hair stylist “slipped me this piece of paper, so I opened it up and it was his number.” Then Majors returned to her side asking: “Am I going to see you later?”
They went to a bar the next day and spent nearly “every day together” after that for several months, she said of the relationship that progressed “fast.”
At first, Jabbari said, Majors seemed “amazing, really kind and loving." She added, “He told me that he loved me early on, which was overwhelming, but I loved it as well.”
“He wrote me poetry,” she said, adding that he also gave her love notes. “I felt very loved and cared for and felt seen. He loved me and I loved him.”
By December of that first year, Jabbari told the jury, she had seen another side of Majors. After off-handedly mentioning her ex, Jabbari recalled that Majors’s demeanor shifted. Majors allegedly began yelling, and Jabbari testified, “It was the first time I felt scared of him.”
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images
Jabbari Shares Photo, Audio of Aftermath from Past Alleged Fights with Majors
December 05, 2023 04:04 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostAmong the evidence presented at trial Tuesday were photographs and audio recordings Jabbari made of their fights, something she said she had started to do because “it just made me feel safer.”
Jabbari showed the jury a photo she said she had taken after a fight with Majors, who she claimed had thrown “anything within reaching distance," including candles, denting a bedroom wall with an object and shattering glass on the floor.
“I took the photo because the shift in his temper was something I was aware of, and I just wanted to remember," Jabbari said. "I knew I kept forgiving him, but I just wanted to have a bit of a memory of him.”
In one recording, played for the jury, Majors allegedly tells Jabbari: “How dare you disturb the peace at our house,” then proceeds to instruct her that as a “team” and “unit,” “the woman that supports me needs to be a great woman and make sacrifices for me.” He allegedly said he was looking for a “Michelle Obama” to his “Barack Obama.”
Jabbari claimed Majors would threaten suicide after fights and make her promise not to tell her family and friends about their fighting because he wanted to marry her “and this will ruin it.”
“I saw the temper as this thing he didn't want to have,” Jabbari told the jury. “I thought he can't control it, but he does love me.”
Of her own state of mind as their relationship continued, she said: “I just felt like I was existing in his world: emotionally and physically. I didn’t really feel my own autonomy at that point.”
Accuser Jabbari Testifies About Majors' 'Rage'
December 05, 2023 02:25 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostThe alleged fight between Majors and Jabbari started with a text message from a woman saved in the actor’s phone as Cleopatra, prosecutors claimed in opening statements of his assault trial Monday morning.
Leaning on his shoulder as they returned from dinner together in March, Jabbari, prosecutors allege, saw a text flash onto his phone with a link to D’Angelo’s song “Lady,” and Cleopatra’s message: “Wish I was kissing you.”
Jabbari took the stand Tuesday morning, rarely looking at Majors, who kept his face turned to his lap at his seat at the defense table.
She discussed the many times she said she had been scared of setting off the man who she described as falling into easy “rage and aggression.”
Read the full story here.
Opening Arguments Address Race and Alleged 'Abuse'
December 05, 2023 02:25 PM EST
Copy The Link To This Blog PostShortly after meeting on the set of Quantumania, Majors asked for choreographer Jabbari’s phone number.
In the beginning of what became a two-year relationship, Majors wrote Jabbari love notes, prosecutors at his assault trial between the now-split couple, told the Manhattan jury Monday.
But, within months “the defendant’s true self began to emerge,” assistant district attorney Michael Perez said in opening statements, claiming that the actor “engaged in a cruel and manipulative pattern of psychological and physical abuse that culminated in the tragic end of their relationship," even allegedly threatening suicide after fights to control the dancer's reactions.
Read the full story here.
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