Actor Danny Masterson drugged and raped women, prosecutor says Daily Press

LOS ANGELES — Actor Danny Masterson drugged and then raped three women in his Hollywood-area home between 2001 and 2003, a prosecutor told jurors Monday in his opening statement at the That 70s Show star’s retrial. .

Assistant District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said Masterson put substances in drinks he gave to a longtime girlfriend and two women he knew through circles of friends around the Church of Scientology, that Masterson is all charged with rape.

Evidence will show they were drugged, Mueller told the jury.

Masterson has pleaded not guilty and his attorneys, who will make their opening statement later Monday, have denied that any of the assaults took place, saying the accusers’ decades-old accounts are full of inconsistencies and not credible.

A mistrial was declared on all three counts at the end of Mastersons’ first trial in November when jurors told the judge they were hopelessly at an impasse.

A direct discussion of the drug element was lacking in the first trial, with Mueller instead having to implicate it through the testimony of the women, who said they were dizzy, disoriented and sometimes unconscious on the nights they portrayed the actor the violating.

But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo allowed the direct assertion at the second trial.

The 47-year-old actor could face up to 45 years in prison if convicted.

Masterson, who has been out on bail since his 2020 arrest, sat at the defense table, with a large coterie of supporters behind him who also attended his first trial. They included his wife, model and actor Bijou Phillips; his sister-in-law, One Day at a Time actor Mackenzie Phillips; and his brother, actor Malcolm in the Middle Christopher Masterson.

Actress Leah Remini, a former Scientologist who has become one of the church’s most vocal opponents on social media and through a TV series she hosted featuring dissident former members, sits in the front row of the courtroom in support of Masterson’s accusers.

Because the investigation that led to Masterson’s two trials did not begin until 15 years later, there will be no direct or forensic evidence that he drugged the women, Mueller said.

But Mueller said he would call an analyst from the police toxicology unit, who will tell you how some of the most common drug-facilitated sexual assaults, how some of the most common date rape drugs work, how fast they are metabolized, what side effects look like.

The drug allegations echoed the trial of Bill Cosby, where women testified to similar experiences. Cosby’s conviction after two trials was finally thrown out by Pennsylvania’s highest court.

Mueller spent much of his presentation on Mastersons’ longtime girlfriend, an actor and model who he says will testify that their relationship grew increasingly physically and sexually abusive before he raped her in December 2001.

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After dinner, she remembers getting up to leave, and she has absolutely no memory after that, Mueller said. It’s the last thing she remembers until she wakes up the next afternoon, in bed, naked and alone.

He said Shell testified that Masterson laughed as he admitted to having sex with her while she was unconscious.

Only five of 12 jurors voted to convict Masterson of that count at the first trial. Even fewer voted guilty on the other two. The district attorney’s office nevertheless decided to proceed with a second trial and the women agreed to testify again.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.

Mueller also told jurors that the women did not immediately turn themselves in to authorities because Church of Scientology officials told them not to, and they were told that what happened to them didn’t happen. was not rape.

Masterson is a prominent member of the church. All three women are former members.

The church said in a statement after the women’s testimony at the first trial that it has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting the criminal conduct of Scientologists, or anyone else, to law enforcement. Rather the opposite. Church policy explicitly requires Scientologists to abide by all laws of the land.