A New York judge has decided that actor Jonathan Majors will still be sentenced next week on his assault and harassment conviction.

 

 

Judge Michael Gaffey denied the defence motion to set aside the verdicts and strip the guilty results against the Creed III actor that a jury delivered on December 18 last year. With this last unsuccessful effort, Majors will be sentenced on April 8 and faces up to a year behind bars.

 

 

In his decision, Judge Gaffey took on each objection by the defence.

 

 

“Defendant first argues that his conviction of reckless assault in the third degree should be set aside because the court erred in submitting the count to the jury,” the judge wrote This Court disagrees. At the outset, contrary to Defendant’s contentions, the court submitted the count of reckless assault as an alternate theory to the intentional assault count, and not as a lesser included offence…there was a reasonable view of the evidence to support that Defendant acted recklessly”

 

 

“Defendant next contends that the court should not have submitted the reckless assault count to the jury without a justification charge,” Judge Gaffey says in the order. “This argument is wholly unpreserved, and as a result, this Court is without power to consider it. Certainly, on appeal, Defendant is free to request that the Appellate Term exercise its interest of justice jurisdiction and reach whether the court should have sua sponte charged justification, or alternatively, whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request such charge.”

 

 

“Finally, the trial evidence was legally sufficient to establish Defendant’s guilt of harassment in the second degree,” he noted. “Such evidence clearly established that Defendant subjected Ms. Jabbari to physical contact, and the jury reasonably could have inferred his intent from the conduct and surrounding circumstances.”

 

 

 Wednesday’s ruling from Judge Gaffey comes almost a month after the much accused Majors’ ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari sued him for defamation. 

 

 

Lawyers for Majors said at the time he would be filing counterclaims, but that doesn’t seem to have occurred. 

 

 

Wednesday’s ruling from Judge Gaffey comes almost a month after the much accused Majors’ ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari sued him for defamation. 

 

 

Majors, who was arrested in March 2023, was convicted late last year of reckless assault and harassment.

 

 

 Originally up against a total of four misdemeanour charges, Majors, who pleaded not guilty, was not convicted by the jury of three men and three women of intentional assault in the third degree and of aggravated harassment in the second degree against then-girlfriend Jabbari in the incident over a year ago.

 

 

Majors always insisted he never attacked British dancer Jabbari after his girlfriend of almost two years discovered texts from another woman on his phone while the duo were being driven through the NYC night in March 2023. 

 

 

Attorney Chaudhry said Majors was the actual victim of abuse by Jabbari and racism by the NYPD. Before the trial began, the Magazine Dreams star took Jabbari to court and had the police issue a de facto warrant for her arrest, a move the DA’s office shut down quickly.