Joseph Gatt, an actor best known for his roles on Game of Thrones and Star Trek Into Darkness, filed suit against Los Angeles County, District Attorney George Gascón, a former prosecutor, and a police detective on Thursday, alleging they “publicly branded him a serial pedophile” by arresting and slapping him with trumped-up charges two years ago.
Gatt, 52, is seeking $40 million, according to his civil rights suit, filed Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles. It comes almost two months after criminal charges against him were dropped pending further investigation, according to court records.
“It was determined that there were valid concerns regarding the sufficiency of the evidence,” a spokesperson for Gascón’s office told NBC Los Angeles. “The charge was dismissed by the assigned prosecutor.”
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Gatt was detained in early 2022 on a felony warrant “for contact with a minor for a sexual offense,” Los Angeles Police Department officials said at the time.
In his suit, Gatt alleges that his interaction with the 16-year-old minor stemmed from a Cameo he’d recorded for their birthday. The unidentified teenager, an “admittedly obsessed” fan of his, allegedly contacted him on Instagram several times over the next three months and Gatt “responded in a manner that was wholly appropriate and consistent with typical celebrity-fan exchanges,” the complaint states.
“Without Gatt’s knowledge, and apparently using software readily available on the internet for the specific purpose of creating fake social media conversations to trick and impress friends, Jane Doe thereafter wholly manufactured fake conversations between herself and Gatt via the social media platform Snapchat that were sexual in nature and pure fantasy,” it continues.
After Doe’s older sister found these fake conversations in 2021 and reported them to law enforcement, a “thoroughly botched” criminal investigation followed, according to the suit, failing to properly substantiate the teenager’s claims. Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Angela Brunson “simply ignored the glaring red flags that would have caused any reasonable person to recognize the complete absence of probable cause,” it adds.
After charges against him were announced, Gatt “was immediately canceled and what had previously been a burgeoning acting career was destroyed,” his lawsuit says. His representatives dropped him and he was fired from three movie projects he’d already been cast in.
“Gatt immediately stopped receiving any further role offers or audition opportunities, and instead received numerous death threats and was stalked and chased by a Daily Mail reporter,” it states.
After Brunson–who the suit alleges held “personal biases and animosity” against Gatt–resigned, he hired a private forensic investigator, who discovered “that Jane Doe had entirely manufactured both her allegations and the photographed conversations on which the criminal charges were based.”
Gatt’s lawyer, Dean Pamphilis, told Deadline that the charges against his client were entirely “based on fabricated evidence.
“Twenty months later, when the fabricated evidence was finally disclosed to Mr. Gatt and Mr. Gatt’s forensic expert were prepared to expose the truth in open court, the Los Angeles DA voluntarily dismissed the criminal complaint,” Pamphilis said. “Mr. Gatt, however, had already lost his community, his acting career, and his personal reputation. We look forward to recovering Mr. Gatt’s enormous losses in court.”
When approached by Deadline, the LAPD and the Los Angeles County DA’s office had no comment due to the “pending litigation.”
Gatt played Thenn Warg in the TV series Game of Thrones, appearing in three episodes in 2014. He has also appeared in other hit shows including NCIS: New Orleans and True Detective, while most recently appearing in the movie, Black Adam.
