Driver testifies that he didn’t see Jonathan Majors hit ex-girlfriend in car service

Metro

By Ben Kochman

The sole witness to the altercation at the center of the domestic assault case against actor Jonathan Majors testified in Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday as the trial began winding down.

Naweed Sarwar, the driver of the black SUV in which the “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” star allegedly assaulted his then-girlfriend Grace Jabbari, told jurors that he didn’t see the much-disputed March 25 encounter because he was looking “straight ahead” at the road.

But Sarwar, speaking through an Urdu interpreter who used broken English, testified he had a “feeling” that Jabbari, a British dancer and movement coach, was the aggressor.

The livery driver had “a feeling the girl had hit the boy…because of the way that she was fighting, and the sounds produced.”

Sarwar did not further describe what sounds led him to believe that Jabbari “hit” Majors during the private car service ride from dinner in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, over the Manhattan Bridge and toward the “Creed III” actor’s Chelsea apartment.

But Sarwar did say that he saw Majors push Jabbari back inside the car when it pulled over on Centre and Canal Streets in Chinatown after the scuffle — the one part of the episode captured by surveillance cameras.

“He was trying to throw her in the car,” he testified. “He was saying, ‘Leave me alone. I have to go.’”

The driver also testified several times that Majors was “trying to get rid” of Jabbari, despite Judge Michael Gaffey pleading with him to only “testify to what is happening, not what you think happened.”

Jabbari, 30, has testified that the episode erupted when she snatched away Majors’ phone after she discovered evidence that he was allegedly cheating on her — a text from another woman who wrote “I wish I was kissing you.”

During cross examination by Majors’ attorneys, Sarwar testified that no blood could be found inside the back seat of the black Cadillac Escalade after the then-couple had left the car.

Majors, 34, wearing a gray double-breasted suit and holding a gold-leaf bible at the defense table, flashed a smile during the driver’s testimony.

Later Monday, the physician who treated Jabbari at Bellevue Hospital after the alleged assault testified that the dancer’s broken right middle finger and cut on the back of her right ear were “consistent” with her narrative that Majors allegedly attacked her.

But on cross-examination, Dr. William Chiang also said that it many cases, someone suffering a blow to the area of the ear and head where Jabbari says she was struck would have been bleeding immediately.

Majors, who denies wrongdoing, has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault and harassment charges, for which he could face up to a year in jail if convicted.

Prosecutors plan to wrap up their case Tuesday with a final witness, an expert in the “dynamics of domestic violence.”

Majors’ lawyers then plan to call several defense witnesses.

It was unclear Monday night whether Majors would testify in his own defense.