- A Manhattan judge on Monday rejected a request by actor Jonathan Majors to overturn his conviction.
- Majors is now due to be sentenced April 8 on harassment and misdemeanor assault.
A Manhattan judge on Monday rejected actor Jonathan Majors' motion to void last year's domestic violence conviction, clearing the way for his April 8 sentencing.
The former Marvel star faces as much as one year in jail on misdemeanor reckless assault and a lower-level charge of harassment in connection with a fight with then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari.
A Manhattan jury had found in December that Majors recklessly injured Jabbari as they fought over his cellphone in the back seat of a chauffeured car on the streets of Chinatown a year ago.
Majors was acquitted of intentional assault and aggravated harassment, indicating jurors did not believe prosecutors had proven Jabbari's injuries — a broken finger and a cut behind her ear — were intentionally caused.
Last month, Majors fought his conviction on grounds of judicial error and insufficiency of evidence.
On Monday, Criminal Court Judge Michael Gaffey, who presided over the December trial, denied the defense motion to set aside the verdict.
There was no judicial error in asking the jury to consider whether Majors caused Jabbari's injuries recklessly, Gaffey ruled in his four-page decision.
"There was a reasonable view of the evidence to support that Defendant acted recklessly," Gaffey wrote.
Jabbari had testified that after she grabbed Majors' phone, he tried to "pry the phone out of my fingers," and was "really trying to let me let go of the object I was holding," the judge noted.
Jabbari also testified that Majors struck her in the head as they continued to fight over the phone, the judge wrote.
It was "reasonable" for jurors to see both injuries as an unintended consequence of the couple's fight, the judge wrote.
Gaffey's ruling next addressed the defense claim that the judge should have explained the laws surrounding the legal defense of "justification" to jurors before deliberations.
But the defense never presented a justification defense, the judge noted. Instead, the defense "argued that Ms. Jabbari sustained her injuries later in the night after she left Defendant," the judge wrote.
Finally, the judge wrote there was sufficient trial evidence to support that Majors was guilty of harassment in the second degree.
The evidence included Jabbari's testimony and street surveillance video showing Majors pushing her back into the car. The defense had countered that Majors was trying to keep Jabbari from being hit by traffic.
Defense attorney Priya Chaudhry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge's ruling.