“Game of Thrones” star Joseph Gatt filed a federal lawsuit against Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón, along with LA City and County, for $40 Million.
The The 52-year-old actor claims that he was “publicly branded as a serial pedophile,” which ruined his life and career, when he was arrested in April 2022 and charged with having “online sexually explicit communication with a minor across state lines.”
Despite Gatt’s denial at the time, the lawsuit states that Gascon, and co-defendants L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Angela Brunson, LAPD Detective Denos Amarantos, along with the City and County of Los Angeles, caused the “intentional destruction” of his once thriving career based off of “the uncorroborated word of a then-16-year-old, admittedly obsessed fan.”
According to the filing, Gatt “did not know and has never actually met,” the minor only identified as Jane Doe.
Game of Thrones star Joseph Gatt sued elected LA County DA George Gascon & former Deputy DA Angela Brunson for $40M in federal court over false pedophilia charges involving online sex talk with an obsessed underage fan. Charges were dismissed. Gatt wants his name back & money. pic.twitter.com/5qPjzEmpMB
— Philip Dubé (@PhilipCDube) April 6, 2024
Gatt’s troubles began when he was hired on Cameo, a platform that allows fans to purchase personalized messages from celebrities, by the girl’s friend to wish Jane Doe a happy 16th birthday in 2020.
Afterwards, the teen messaged him regularly on Instagram, and he only responded in “a manner that was wholly appropriate and consistent with typical celebrity-fan exchanges.”
Unfortunately, Gatt didn’t know that the teenager was “admittedly obsessed” with him, which she demonstrated by using software to generate fake social media conversations between them that were “sexual in nature and pure fantasy.”
When Jane Doe’s older sister discovered the messages, she sent them to a police department in Washington, who forwarded the case to Los Angeles, where Gatt resides.
Gatt was arrested in April 2022 and released the same day on $5,000 bond, but he was “immediately cancelled and what had previously been a burgeoning acting career was destroyed.”
He was fired from two movies, recast as the lead in a third film, and was cut out of scenes in two other films that had already been shot. Gatt was also dropped by his agent and PR representatives right away.
“Gatt was arrested and prosecuted based solely on unauthenticated pictures of social media conversations displayed on an unidentified phone screen that, on their face, were highly suspicious and facially untrustworthy,” the court documents state.
To add insult to injury, Gatt’s life was left in limbo, when investigators failed to interview the teenager until nearly a year after he was arrested, in what the filing refers to as a “thoroughly botched criminal investigation.”
When the actor, who has had recent roles in “Black Adam,” “NCIS: New Orleans,” and “Dumbo,” in addition to his stint as Thenn Warg on “Game of Thrones,” was preparing for his day in court, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office “voluntarily dismissed the criminal complaint.”
Gatt has not worked as an actor since his arrest, and was forced to sell off high-priced assets to pay for his legal defense and a private forensic investigator to help clear his name.
“As a direct result of Defendants’ reckless investigation and malicious prosecution, Gatt has suffered immeasurable mental anguish and emotional distress that made him physically ill, and his reputation has been utterly destroyed,” the lawsuit alleges.
Gascon is currently facing a recall from disgruntled Los Angeles residents who are fed up with the district attorney’s soft on crime policies, which include the elimination of cash bail, sentence enhancements, and an outright refusal to charge repeat teenage offenders as adults.
Under his rule, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office no longer prosecutes thirteen criminal offenses which include: Trespassing, criminal threats, resisting arrest, public intoxication, loitering to commit prostitution, and disturbing the peace, amongst others.
In January, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a request to throw out a lawsuit that the Committee to Support the Recall of District Attorney George Gascón filed when their 2022 recall efforts did not make election ballot.
According to the filing, the Los Angeles County Registrar ruled that almost 200,000 of the signatures the collected were invalid, making the recall fall 46,000 signatures short.
Gascon and the county registrar filed a joint motion to dismiss the case, alleging that there is not enough evidence to warrant a lawsuit, but judge overruled and the lawsuit should go to adjudication sometime this year.