Featured Image Credit: Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images / HBO
Topics: Celebrity, Game of Thrones, Film and TV, US News
Britt Jones
Topics: Celebrity, Game of Thrones, Film and TV, US News
A former Game of Thrones star is suing the City of Los Angeles two years after his arrest on alleged pedophilia charges.
Joseph Gatt played the Thenn warg in season four of GoT and is now firing back after his 2022 arrest, which led to a dismissed case.
Gatt is suing the Los Angeles Police Department, L.A. District Attorney George Gascón, L.A and others for $40 million in damages.
Entertainment Weekly obtained documents to the suit which claims the defendants ‘publicly branded him as a serial pedophile,’ which ruined his career prospects, community standing and reputation.
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It also claims that Deputy District Attorney Angela Brunson had a ‘personal bias and animosity’ towards Gatt at the time of the case.
Dean Z. Pamphilis of Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP said in a statement: "The arrest and charges against Mr. Gatt — for which he was branded by the Los Angeles DA and LAPD as a serial pedophile — were based on fabricated evidence.”
Gatt was accused of engaging in sexually explicit communication online with a person underage in a different state from the actor.
However, nearly two years later the case was dismissed after the evidence was found to have been fabricated.
Gatt alleges in his lawsuit that those who brought charges against him didn’t ‘interview or even remotely assess for credibility’ until almost one year after his initial arrest.
"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," the suit added.
"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."
He is now asking for $40 million in damages against the defendants, who he has claimed violated his constitutional rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment.
Gatt’s suit comes just weeks after an LA judge dismissed the case against Gatt, with the possibility of it reopening if there is sufficient evidence.
Gatt called this a ‘shocking and intentional destruction’ of his career and that it had been down to a ‘thoroughly botched criminal investigation.’
At the time of his arrest, Gatt branded the allegations as ‘100% percent categorically wrong and reckless.’