Jonathan Majors Doesn’t Testify In Domestic Violence Trial As Defense Rests; WME’s Elan Ruspoli Details Conversations With Client On Night Of Alleged Assault – Update
UPDATE, 1:58 PM: Jonathan Majors will not be testifying in his own defense in his domestic violence trial.
After just a few hours today, the defense just rested its case in the Manhattan courtroom of Judge Michael Gaffey. With the outcome unknown until the very end, the Creed III actor was eventually not called as a witness. There had been rumors that Majors would give his perspective on what went down on March 25 between him and then girlfriend Grace Jabbari, but in the end, his team played it safe.
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Majors’ WME agent Elan Ruspoli was the final defense witness, detailing conversations and correspondence he had with his client in and around the night in question.
Arrested by the NYPD that March weekend, Majors has entered a plea of not guilty in the matter. If the jury of three men and three women convict him, the Loki star could face up to a year behind bars on the quartet of misdemeanor charges.
Ruspoli said that Majors called him at 7:45 a.m. PT at his home in Los Angeles from outside the master bedroom of the actor’s apartment in Chelsea on the night of the incident in question. Majors sounded “beyond concerned, distraught, worried,” Ruspoli testified. “I’ve never heard him like the way he was on that call.”
Without discussing the specific contents of the 25-minute call, Ruspoli said he heard a loud, repeated banging noise — which he demonstrated in court by bringing his right fist down on the wooden edge of the witness box several times in slow succession. It was, he said, “loud from the moment it started but progressively louder as it went on.”
Majors’ agent for several years, Ruspoli said that the banging went on for “the entirety of the conversation for the period which he was at the door,” although under cross examination by prosecutor Michael Perez, he clarified that the banging wasn’t continuous.
Ruspoli did not say what he thought the cause of the banging was, and he was barred by a prosecution objection from answering a question from Majors’ lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, about any other noises he heard. The agent said that Majors’ tone of voice was “rushed — there’s fear in it.” He added, “Stricken, fear, concerned,” but the judge struck that portion of the answer. Listening to a playback of Majors’ 911 call from the apartment, he said the tone on the emergency call “mirrors” what he heard in his own call.
During a brief cross-examination, Perez asked Majors’ agent, “So it’s fair to say the more money he makes the more you make?”
Ruspoli denied that that was the case, explaining that his compensation was governed by a “pre-existing contract.”
Closing arguments are set to start Thursday morning and the case could go to the jury before the end of day tomorrow.
PREVIOUSLY, 9:13 AM: Whether or not Jonathan Majors will testify in his defense in the Loki actor’s domestic violence trial has now taken on greater significance today as the Manhattan District Attorney’s office rested its case this morning.
Almost immediately after the prosecution wrapped up right after court opened Wednesday, the Priya Chaudhry-led defense team moved to have the case dismissed. Such a Hail Mary is a standard tactic in such trials. With Majors himself sitting just a few feet away in the 100 Centre Street courtroom, Judge Michael Gaffey rejected the motion, as is pretty standard in such trials.
In explaining his quick decision, the judge said prosecutors had presented “competent evidence” that fit the charges.
Even with apparent past incidents coming out in court, Majors has insisted that he is innocent since he was arrested for assault earlier this year for the alleged March 25 incident with then girlfriend Grace Jabbari. If the actor is found guilty by the jury of three men and three women, he could face up to a year behind bars for the misdemeanors.
On June 22, following up on his claim that Jabbari was the aggressor that spring night, Majors filed a cross-complaint against the British national, whom he had been dating since 2021. In late October, Jabbari presented herself at a NYPD precinct station and was arrested. Reiterating what they had said before, the DA Alvin Bragg’s office said that they would not be prosecuting her and “the matter is now closed and sealed.”
Wednesday morning, the NYPD’s Ronnie Mejia, who recommended an investigation into Jabbari’s alleged actions, was the first witness for the defense. Mejia noted that it was lawyers for Majors, not the actor himself who showed up at the precinct in June.
Majors himself arrived at court before 9 a.m. ET today with family members and girlfriend Meagan Good, and kissed his mother in the hallway before entering a side door next to the courtroom. He wore a dark gray suit and a dark blue patterned tie into the courtroom. It was unclear as of today whether developments in the trial have made Majors’ testimony more likely.
Before today, jurors in Majors’ domestic violence trial in New York City have spent over a week hearing evidence surrounding the fight that broke out between the Magazine Dreams star and choreographer Jabbari during a car ride home on March 25.
They’ve taken in surveillance video, text exchanges, secretly recorded audio, and an eyewitness account from the driver that night. They watched tearful testimony from Jabbari, who said that Majors had an explosive temper and there had been incidents before. They heard from Jabbari that Majors struck her inside the car when she saw a text from another woman and tried to grab his phone. The jury has seen photographs of the various injuries supposedly Jabbari suffered, including a busted finger and laceration on her head. They’ve heard from doctors, trauma experts and more.
Yet the jury hasn’t heard directly from Majors himself, and the question of whether he will take the stand in his own defense has hung over the case from the start. Chaudhry raised the possibility during jury selection, asking the pool of 39 potential jurors if anyone would disbelieve him as a witness just because he’s an actor.
In the meantime, prosecutors for the DA’s office are using Majors’ own words against him to try to persuade the jury that he was an abuser, physically and emotionally, during the couple’s two years together and on March 25.
In a dramatic shift by the court, some of the material that Judge Michael Gaffey had previously sealed, calling it “likely to be prejudicial and inflammatory,” has now made its way to jurors, with the judge ruling that the defense had opened the door to the unsealing with its cross-examination of Jabbari. In an evidence dump by the court this morning, photos of Jabbari and her injuries taken by attending NYPD officers in March were released, as were several texts of Majors threatening suicide to his then girlfriend. Seemingly occurring after a disagreement between the couple in their contentious relationship, those texts were referenced before in the case.
Like today, Majors has spent the trial seated between his lawyers, sometimes taking notes, as various members of his family members and Good have looked on from the public seats in a courtroom packed with spectators. A ceramic cup and a bible with gold leaf pages that he brings to court every day rest on the table in front of him.
Jurors last week heard Majors castigate Jabbari for her shortcomings as a partner in audio that Jabbari recorded without his knowledge in London in 2022. “I’m a great man … doing great things,” Majors said on the recording. “The woman that supports me …needs to be a great woman and make sacrifices.”
Majors sat stone faced in court on Dec. 8 as potentially damning texts between him and Jabbari about an incident in London — six months before his arrest in New York — were read aloud. “I will tell the doctor I bumped my head if I go,” Jabbari wrote of plans to get painkillers from a hospital. Majors wrote back that going to the hospital would “lead to an investigation even if you do lie and they suspect something.”
The trial was projected to last about two weeks when opening statements were presented on Dec. 4. Court sources indicate that they believe that schedule will still stand.
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