Jonathan Majors’ motion to void NY domestic violence conviction cites judicial error, insufficiency of evidence

Jonathan Majors after being found guilty of assault and harassment of his former girlfriend.

YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images

Jonathan Majors is seeking to void his December domestic violence conviction prior to sentencing.His 41-page effort cites judicial error and insufficiency of evidence.Majors faces up to one year in a NYC jail at a sentencing set for April 8.

Jonathan Majors’ 41-page motion to void his December domestic violence conviction was made public Wednesday, and it cites judicial error and insufficiency of evidence as grounds.

It’s a statistical longshot effort by the Marvel actor, as this kind of pre-sentencing effort, known as a “330.30 motion” in reference to New York state criminal procedure law, rarely succeeds.

But its filing, which was obtained by Business Insider, shows Majors is aggressively challenging the career-crushing misdemeanor conviction.

The actor faces up to one year in a city jail at a sentencing set for April 8. A Manhattan jury convicted Majors on December 18 of misdemeanor reckless assault charge and a lower-level charge of harassment.

The charges stemmed from a midnight fight last March on the streets of Chinatown with then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari.

Majors is seeking to void the conviction on two grounds allowed under 330.30: reversible judicial error relating to the reckless assault, and a lack of sufficient evidence concerning that charge and the harassment violation.

The reckless misdemeanor assault

The jury in December acquitted Majors of the original charge of intentional assault, and it’s here that Majors’ attorney, Priya Chaudhry focused her 330.30 effort.

Jurors were improperly given an alternate choice of finding Majors guilty of assaulting Jabbari recklessly or unintentionally, Chaudhry argued.

Prosecutors “presented an “intentional or bust” assault case but no evidence that the assault could have been unintentional or reckless, she wrote. “And for that reason, the reckless assault charge should never have been presented to the jury at all,” she wrote.

Judge Michael Gaffey erred in offering jurors an alternate charge that did not require intent, the motion argued.

Prosecutors contended throughout the trial that Majors’ assault on Jabbari was intentional. By offering jurors an alternative of “reckless” assault, the judge improperly gave prosecutors a “second bite at the apple,” Chaudhry wrote.

Prosecutors presented scant evidence “bookended” by “pattern of abuse” claims

Chaudhry also argues that there was insufficient evidence that Majors assaulted Jabbari at all — just claims about his “pattern” of abusing his ex-girlfriend that prove nothing about what happened during the March dispute itself.

Majors has maintained that he was the victim, not the aggressor, of his dispute with Jabbari and had argued at trial that her injuries — a broken finger, and a cut on her ear — were caused when she fell hours of drinking later, while alone in his apartment.

“The people bookended the trial with loud accusations of a deliberate pattern of intentional bad conduct by Mr. Majors,” Chaudhry wrote.

“They relentlessly pressed a narrative of deliberate and calculated abuse,” she wrote.

Read Jonathan Majors’ motion to void his domestic violence conviction here.