Actor Joseph Gatt was the victim of a 19-year-old false accuser and a vicious prosecutor in Los Angeles.
The false accuser, known so far only by the initials LT, began her lying as an ‘obsessed’ 16-year-old who accused Gatt of sexual abuse.
The only problem is they never met. And Gatt never sent her abusive messages.
Gatt was arrested almost two years ago, on April 6, 2022, for contact with a minor for a sexual offense.
Charges against Gatt were dismissed on Friday by LA Superior Court Judge M.L. Villar after it was revealed that forensic technologist Jeff Fischbach was ready to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that LT had made up the story of abuse—and fabricated evidence of texts, and Instagram and Snapchat messages.
Dana Cole, Jeff Fischbach, Joseph Gatt and Gatt’s longtime girlfriend, Mercy Malick
Defense Prevails
The prosecution reluctantly agreed the case could not continue after being confronted with 180 pages of evidence — slides of Instagram and Snapchat texts and photos — that proved Gatt never sent them, and more to the point that LT had created every one of them.
Fischbach and Gatt’s attorney, Dana Cole, appeared for the preliminary hearing with Gatt.
Before the hearing, Gatt’s defense team showed Deputy District Attorney Michael Fern the evidence that the now 19-year-old LT was a liar.
The shamefaced DDA Fern blubbered that Gatt was trying to embarrass the office.
This remarkable self-centered prosecutor had no concern that they nearly destroyed a man’s career and tried to put him in prison on evidence they could have proven false had they cared or knew how to investigate.
A Life Interrupted
“This has been a horrific experience for almost two years – it ruined my life,” said the 52-year-old Game of Thrones actor.
Gatt as Thenn Warg in ‘Game of Thrones’
“My agent fired me the next day without even speaking to me,” said Gatt.
“I was fired from the Rebel Moon movie that I had already started work on. Offers stopped coming in. After 35 years, my career was ruined.”
DDA Fern showed clearly that his interest was not in justice. Rather, he was forced to avoid the embarrassment of being called out as incompetent.
DDA Fern asked Judge Villar to dismiss the case ‘without prejudice.’
Dismissing without prejudice means the DA could conceivably re-file the same charge against Gatt, though the odds of the DA doing so are about 1 in 100 million.
If the DA, after knowing that the accuser obstructed justice, tried to bring the charges again, it would likely result in serious judicial sanctions against the DA’s office for bringing a case in bad faith. It could lead to the disbarment of the DDA that tries it.
The Real Victim
Gatt’s attorney Cole told the judge: “This was manufactured evidence by a purported victim. Her so-called personal conversations show an extremely troubled young lady who fantasized about Mr. Gatt.”
Attorney Dana Cole
“Who is the victim here? Is it the alleged victim, or is it Mr. Gatt?” asked Cole. “His career has been destroyed, and it’s not right.”
LT was not in court. The Los Angeles DA’s office chose not to bring in LT, possibly to avoid her being charged with perjury.
The Accuser’s Web of Lies
The only contact Gatt had with the LT was when, several years ago, a relative of LT – whom Gatt didn’t know – paid to have the actor record a video birthday greeting for her via Cameo, a company that sells personalized greetings from celebrities.
Gatt didn’t know that LT was obsessed with his character on Z Nation – a TV show that ran from 2014 to 2018 in which he played ‘The Man.’
LT began sharing pictures and texts that she claimed came from Gatt with her friends, completely unknown to Gatt.
In pretend texts, she would say to Gatt, “I want you to be my daddy.”
A Wake-Up Call for the DA
The LA DA and their investigators could not detect the obvious fraud since they and their investigators are not competent to do forensic investigations, unlike most other DA offices in the USA.
If they had that ability, the LA DA would have quickly realized that LT created the sexual messages to and from Gatt.
The police were so inept that when they found LT had partially nude pictures of Gatt on LT’s phone, they did not even have the ability to check the metadata to determine its source. If they knew how to do that, they would have realized the photos did not come from Gatt.
The offending photos are readily available to anyone with internet access, for they were stills of him from the TV show Banshee, a 2013-16 series.
Joseph Gatt appearing in the tv series ‘Banshee’
When a relative saw the photos, LT lied and said they were from Gatt, and the relative reported it to the police,
A 30-member SWAT team arrived at 4.45 AM on April 6, 2022, at Gatt’s house with guns, dragged Gatt and his girlfriend out of bed, and searched the house.
Police searched Gatt’s computer and phone but found nothing.
Meanwhile, the liar LT told her friends and shared more fake Instagram and Snapchat conversations with Gatt, some of them very sexual, which she made up.
Oddly, the DA ignored Gatt’s defense team, who repeatedly tried to point them in the right direction.
The Price of Fame
Cole said, “If you are a celebrity in LA, all you have to do is use the internet, and evidence against you can be manufactured.
“It’s easy to create fake conversations and pictures, and it puts celebrities at a real risk of having their careers destroyed.”
Everyone knows this, but the LA DA. This office has yet to learn how to distinguish fake texts from authentic texts and social media messages.
They could invite Fischbach to teach them.
But the most disturbing aspect is that before the preliminary hearing, the DA almost certainly knew LT had falsified evidence – but as DDA Fern noted, it is more important not to embarrass the office than exonerate the innocent.
Civil Suit Looming
Gatt has appeared in the Disney remake Dumbo, Star Trek Into Darkness, and Thor.
He was investigated for 32 months (eight in Washington State, where the false accuser lives and 26 months by the LA DA).
Gatt has a likely multi-million civil lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles.
