When he stepped off a plane 16 months ago, David Jassy, a rapper and record producer from Stockholm, planned to make it big in American pop music. On Tuesday, he finally got the rapt attention of an important audience, but the stage — the witness chair of a downtown Los Angeles courthouse — was one he never wanted.
Jassy, 35, took the stand at his murder trial today, speaking directly to a jury that will decide whether he may spend the rest of his life in a California prison or returns to Sweden, where he had a successful career, a child and a fashion-model girlfriend.
He is accused of punching, kicking and running over a pedestrian in what prosecutors have described as a horrifying act of road rage.
In two hours on the witness stand, Jassy repeatedly said that he never intended to harm the victim and was defending himself and his girlfriend after the man banged on the hood of their rented SUV in a Hollywood crosswalk.
“I was in fear for my life. I didn’t know if he had a gun, a knife. I know L.A. is way more dangerous than Sweden is,” Jassy testified.
— Harriet Ryan