Joseph Gatt, an actor who appeared on Season 4 of Game of Thrones, has filed a whopping $40 million lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department, L.A. District Attorney George Gascón and Deputy District Attorney Angela Brunson nearly two years after he was arrested on false pedophile charges.
According to the suit, which was obtained by DECIDER, Gatt claims the defendants “publicly branded him as a serial pedophile,” which ultimately destroyed his “acting career and personal reputation.” He also alleges that Brunson “sought to destroy him based on nothing more than bias and personal animosity” relating to their differing political views.
The “botched criminal investigation” allegedly stemmed from a 16th birthday message Gatt sent to a teen he later learned was an “obsessed” fan via Cameo. The fan, who is referred to as “Jane Doe” in the complaint, then thanked him on social media, resulting in a “completely innocuous” conversation that was “wholly appropriate and consistent with typical celebrity-fan exchanges.”
However, she allegedly proceeded to “manufacture fake conversations between herself and Gatt via the social media platform Snapchat that were sexual in nature and pure fantasy.” After one of Jane Doe’s older siblings saw the messages and reported them to authorities, Gatt says the defendants “did not even bother to interview [Jane Doe] or even remotely assess for credibility until almost one year after arresting Gatt and prosecuting him.”
He says he was “immediately canceled” following his April 2022 arrest as he was dropped by his agent and public relations team. He was also fired from two movies, recast in another in which he was set to play the lead part and either replaced or cut out of the two films he had already filmed.
But, according to Gatt, his arrest had more to do with politics than the alleged crime.
Gatt adds in the suit that Brunson, like himself, was a member of the high-performance sports car community, unveiling “a previously undisclosed personal connection.” He also says that Brunson knows him for his “liberal political beliefs,” noting that she, one the other hand, “espouses conservative political beliefs that are the polar opposite” of his. Plus, Gatt publicly supported DA Gascón, while Brunson was “a vocal critic” of him.
“Given her political beliefs and Gatt’s reputation as a liberal and a Gascón supporter in their shared community — including his connection to her boyfriend’s employer, WRTeknica — DDA Brunson clearly already held personal animosity toward Gatt at the time this matter was referred to LA County,” the suit reads. “Remarkably, however, DDA Brunson never revealed her personal connections and clear conflicts of interest to the Court, Gatt, or his criminal defense counsel.”
Following the filing, Gatt’s lawyer Dean Pamphilis released a statement to Deadline.
“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,” he said. “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. Mr. Gatt, however, had already lost his community, his acting career and his personal reputation.”
He concluded, “We look forward to recovering Mr. Gatt’s enormous losses in court.”
