Witnesses to Jonathan Majors’ confrontation with Grace Jabbari testify at domestic violence trial

The handful of witnesses present for Jonathan Majors’ March confrontation with Grace Jabbari and its aftermath testified Monday as the Marvel actor’s domestic violence trial neared a close.

Livery cab driver Naveed Sarwar was driving the private Cadillac Escalade where the incident central to the case occurred March 25 in lower Manhattan.

Prosecutors say Majors violently responded when Jabbari grabbed his phone from his hand upon seeing a flirtatious text from another woman as the pair sat in the back seat of Sarwar’s cab, breaking her finger and inflicting a large cut behind her ear during a fracas that spilled onto the street as he sought to retrieve the device.

During opening statements, prosecutors told jurors Sarwar saw the “Creed III” actor throw Jabbari into the car like “a football.” Majors’ team said the driver thought Jabbari was a “psycho.”

But the driver said neither on the stand.

Testifying in Manhattan Criminal Court through an Urdu interpreter, Sarwar said he picked the couple up in Chelsea on March 24, first taking them to the Brooklyn Academy of Music and then a restaurant. He said neither seemed intoxicated when he brought them back to Manhattan that night.

When they approached Canal and Centre Sts. on the way home, Sarwar heard Jabbari say she wanted to see a message on Majors’ phone.

“The boy said that there is nothing, but the girl was insisting,” the driver testified. “The girl became very angry.”

Sarwar, who testified while jurors watched CCTV of the car stopping, said he could feel “something was going on in the back seat,” when Majors opened the door in traffic and Jabbari sought to follow him.

“He was saying, ‘Leave me alone. I have to go,’ ” he said. “I do remember the boy was pushing her back into the car to get rid of her.”

Initially, the driver said he thought Jabbari had been the one to hit Majors because of “the way she was fighting and the sounds produced,” but he acknowledged he had been looking ahead and didn’t see blows exchanged.

During a quick cross-examination, Sarwar said he never saw blood.

Before Sarwar, jurors heard from some of the partygoers the couple encountered on the sidewalk, who stayed with Jabbari when Majors fled to a hotel.

Chloe Zoller said Jabbari was visibly upset and relayed that she’d lost her phone, wallet and keys after getting out of a moving car upon learning her partner was cheating.

“I was the one who invited her to join us,” Zoller testified, later saying she sought ice for Jabbari’s injured finger at the club.

Jabbari last week told jurors she got home about 3 a.m. and fell asleep in the couple’s walk-in closet after taking over-the-counter sleeping pills.

Majors called 911 when he arrived home hours later and found Jabbari on the floor. Responding officers determined a domestic incident had occurred and took her to the hospital and him into custody.

Later Monday, Bellevue Hospital doctor William Chiang testified that he treated Jabbari for the injuries jurors saw photos of last week. He said they were generally consistent with her account of the alleged assault.

Majors’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry, who’s sought to portray Jabbari as unstable, grilled Chang about her drinking. Chang said a psychiatric evaluation determined no risk of suicide or severe depression, noting it found Jabbari could be “at risk” for alcohol abuse but not that she had a problem.

Months after the incident, Majors filed a countercomplaint alleging Jabbari had been the aggressor, but prosecutors rejected the case as having no merit.

Prosecutors allege Majors’ allegations continued a cruel pattern of psychological and physical abuse that played out over their tumultuous 19-month relationship. Last week, jurors saw texts from the actor appearing to admit to assaulting his ex on a separate occasion in 2022 and trying to persuade her not to seek medical attention for a head injury.

The 34-year-old has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault and harassment charges carrying up to a year in jail. It’s unclear whether he plans to testify.

The trial continues Tuesday.