Game of Thrones actor Joseph Gatt has spoken for the first time of his relief after a judge dismissed a sexual contact case brought against him by an “obsessed” 16-year-old fan.
But, in an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, he says his acting career has been destroyed by the allegations and he can no longer find work.
“This has been a horrible experience for almost two years – it ruined my life,” said the 52-year-old who played Thenn Warg in GoT.
“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.
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.
‘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 on Friday 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.
Armed with 180 slides of text and photos from Instagram and SnapChat, Fischbach and Gatt’s attorney, Dana Cole, met with Deputy District Attorney Michael Fern before the hearing began.
Fern then asked Judge Villar to dismiss the case “without prejudice,” meaning prosecutors could bring the same charge against him again in the future.
Gatt, who wore a dark gray pinstriped suit and white open-collared shirt in court on Friday, has protested his innocence since his arrest in April 2022.
Attorney Cole told the judge: Mr. Gatt is an actor and this case has had a devastating effect on his career, financially and emotionally.
‘This was fabricated evidence by an alleged victim. Her so-called personal conversations show an extremely troubled young woman who fantasized about Mr. Gatt.
‘Who is the victim here? Is it the alleged victim or is it Mr. Gatt? Cole asked. “His career has been destroyed and that’s not right.”
Judge Villar was to decide whether there was a case against Gatton on charges of “contact with a minor for a sexual offense” and possession of an assault weapon.
The alleged teenage victim was not in court.
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,” GoT actor Gatt said.
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 2013-16 series that aired from 2013-2016.
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 weapons, pulled us out of bed and searched the house.” home,” 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.
While Gatt is pleased with Friday’s dismissal, he feels he has been robbed of “the opportunity to completely exonerate me” due to 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 nude 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 got 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: ‘It’s not just 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.
One of Gatt’s most notable roles was as Thenn Warg in the popular HBO series Game of Thrones.
His character was a member of the Thenn, a tribe of Free People known for their ritual practices of self-healing and cannibalism.
After appearing in several episodes during the fourth series in 2014, her character died in the Battle of Castle Black.
Gatt has also starred in several blockbuster films, including Disney’s live-action remake of 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.