Game of Thrones actor Joseph Gatt has taken legal action against Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, a former prosecutor and LAPD detective.
Gatt alleges that Gascon and the detective failed to adequately investigate a teen’s allegations that he was sexually harassed by Gatt before publicly announcing the felony charges against him.
The case was quietly dismissed two years later after a forensic examination showed that the evidence had been fabricated and that Gatt was innocent.
In the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Gatt claimed that his acting career has been virtually destroyed by careless allegations that he had exchanged explicit communications with a minor in another state.
“This lawsuit arises from the shocking and intentional destruction of Joseph Gatt’s acting career and personal reputation by Los Angeles County law enforcement personnel as a result of a completely botched criminal investigation, without any probable cause.” , the complaint states.
Joseph Gatt appeared in court hand in hand with his girlfriend Mercy Malick, who accompanied him during his two-year ordeal.
Gatt, 52, played Thenn Warg on the popular HBO series Game of Thrones.
Gatt told DailyMail.com that his career was ruined by the allegations against him. “My agent fired me the next day without even speaking to me,” he said.
Charges against Gatt were dismissed on Feb. 9, according to court records.
“It was determined that there were valid concerns about the sufficiency of the evidence,” a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said. “The charge was dismissed by the designated prosecutor.”
Gatt has chosen Dean Pamphilis as his legal representative. Pamphilis recently secured a $5 million settlement on behalf of the owner of an election software company accused of conspiracy and embezzlement in an alleged scheme involving China to influence the election.
According to that lawsuit, the matter was dismissed after it became clear that there was no evidence of any violations of the law and that the allegations were based on conspiracy theories promoted by people skeptical of the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“The arrest and charges against Mr. Gatt, in which the Los Angeles District Attorney and the Los Angeles Police Department labeled him a serial pedophile, were based on fabricated evidence,” Pamphilis said.
The actor was accused of having sexually explicit conversations with a 16-year-old girl across state lines, according to a press release issued by the Los Angeles police in 2022. The release requested that any other potential victims contact the police.
In Gatt’s lawsuit, he claimed that forensic testing of the digital device was delayed until well after the arrest and press release, and that it became clear that someone (possibly the teenager at the center of the allegations) had created the screenshots. incriminating screen.
“Twenty months later, when the fabricated evidence was finally revealed to Mr. Gatt and Mr. Gatt’s forensic expert was prepared to expose the truth in open court, the Los Angeles District Attorney voluntarily dismissed the criminal complaint,” Pamphilis said. .
‘Mister. Gatt, however, had already lost his community, his acting career, and his personal reputation,” he stated. “We look forward to recovering Mr. Gatt’s enormous losses in court.”
Gatt has chosen Dean Pamphilis (pictured) to be his legal representation
In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, Gatt detailed the events and allegations that led to his decision to take legal action.
“This has been a horrible experience for almost two years; it ruined my life,” said the 52-year-old who played Thenn Warg on the hit HBO show Game of Thrones.
“My agent fired me the next day without even speaking to me,” said British actor Gatt, who has lived in the United States for more than two decades.
‘I was fired from the movie Rebel Moon that I had already started working on. Offers stopped coming. After 35 years, my career was ruined.
‘People hear an accusation and say, “Oh, he must be guilty.” There is not even a discussion. Innocence until proven guilty no longer exists.
The charges against Gatt were dismissed by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ML Villar after it was revealed that forensic technologist Jeff Fischbach was able to prove that the girl – ‘LT’ – had made up the abuse story.
After the hearing, Gatt told DailyMail.com that his nightmare innocently unfolded two years ago when a relative of ‘LT’ – whom Gatt did not know – paid for the actor to record a birthday greeting video for him via Facebook. Cameo, a company. which sells personalized greetings from celebrities.
What he didn’t know at the time, he said, was that “this girl was already obsessed with my character on Z Nation,” a television show that aired from 2014 to 2018 in which he played “The Man.”
“She was already sharing photos and text messages about me with her friends, without me knowing,” Gatt said. “She allegedly told me in text messages, ‘I want you to be my dad.'”
Gatt and Malick discussed their case outside court with attorney Dana Cole (left) and forensic technologist Jeff Fischbach.
Mercy Malick, 51, has been with Gatt at previous court hearings, including one in December.
“A SWAT team showed up at 4:30 in the morning with guns, dragged us out of bed and searched the house,” said GoT actor Gatt.
Malick accused the Los Angeles district attorney of malicious prosecution and prosecutorial misconduct. The couple appears in the photo with two huskies.
“He even had naked pictures of me on his phone from the TV show Banshee,” a series that aired from 2013 to 2016.
And she would tell her friends and share fake Instagram and Snapchat conversations with me, some of them very sexual, which she completely made up.
We have absolute proof that she made all this up about me. And we have never heard anything from the alleged victim.
A family member of ‘LT’, concerned about the posts and photographs that the teen claimed were Gatt’s, contacted the Los Angeles police.
Judge ML Villar dismissed the case against Gatt after the prosecutor agreed that it should not proceed further.
In April 2022, at the Los Angeles home he shares with his girlfriend, actress and writer Mercy Malick, 51, ‘a SWAT team showed up at 4:30 in the morning with guns, pulled us out of bed and searched the house,’ he said.
‘They searched my computer and phone but found nothing on them. They illegally confiscated my AR15 gun, which is licensed and completely legal.
‘The police were completely confident in this girl’s accusations against me, which were all made up. But the district attorney won’t admit that all of these alleged Internet conversations were fabricated.
Gatt felt at the time that he had been robbed of “the opportunity to completely exonerate me” because of the decision to dismiss the case without prejudice.
‘I’m a little disappointed because I’m innocent and I want to be able to tell the world and rebuild my life.
“However, I still have to worry that one day they might come back and arrest me again for something I never did, that was totally made up.”
Gatt played ‘The Albiino’ in five episodes of Banshee. A naked photo of him on the show appeared on ‘LT’s phone, prompting a police investigation into him.
Gatt also appeared in the 2014 CW post-apocalyptic series The 100.
“Some people will still say, ‘He came out but he still did it.'”
‘If it had been dismissed with prejudice, it would have meant that the district attorney could not refile charges against me and I could share with the world the 7,000 pages of documents we have that prove I am innocent.
‘But the DA doesn’t want us to do that because he knows it would be very publicly embarrassing for them and would force them to admit that they didn’t do a good job and should never have brought this case in the first place.
‘With the dismissal without prejudice, they put it in my head, as a threat that they could re-present the case so that I do not share all this material that I have and that shows that the evidence against me was fabricated. The district attorney is trying to stop us from publishing it.
Cole said, “If you’re a celebrity in Los Angeles, all you have to do is use the Internet and evidence can be fabricated against you.”
“It’s easy to create false conversations and images and this puts celebrities at real risk of having their careers destroyed.”
Malick, his long-time girlfriend, whom Gatt hugged and thanked for “standing by my side” through all of this, added at the time: ‘It’s not just about celebrities. No one is safe.’
In an email to DailyMail.com, the actress and writer accused the Los Angeles district attorney of malicious prosecution and prosecutorial misconduct, the Los Angeles police of search and seizure violations, and the alleged victim of falsifying evidence.
In addition to Game of Thrones, Gatt has also starred in several blockbuster films, including Disney’s live-action remake Dumbo, Star Trek Into Darkness and Thor.
The bald actor, who suffers from a condition called alopecia universalis that caused him to lose all his hair at age 14, began his acting career with an appearance in the British crime drama The Bill in 1999.