The actor Danny Masterson, a native of Long Island, drugged and raped three women at his residence in the Hollywood area between 2001 and 2003, a prosecutor said in his opening statement Monday in the retrial of the “That ’70s Show” star.
Masterson is accused of raping his longstanding girlfriend and two women he knew through Church of Scientology friend circles, according to Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller. Masterson is also charged with raping his longtime girlfriend.
“The evidence will show that they were drugged,” Mueller told the jury. The defense denies the existence of such evidence.
Direct discussion of drugging was absent from the first trial, which ended in a mistrial when the jury deadlocked on all three counts.
Instead, Mueller had to infer drugging from the women’s testimony that they were woozy, disoriented, and sometimes unconscious on the nights they described the actor raping them.
At the second trial, however, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo permits the direct assertion.
Masterson’s attorney, Philip Cohen, stated in his opening statement that the prosecution’s only evidence consists of hazy stories and assertions, and he told the jury,
“There is no drug charge in this case.”
Attorneys on both sides acknowledged that there is no forensic evidence of any substances Masterson may have administered to the women, as the police investigation that led to the two trials did not commence until approximately fifteen years after the events.
However, Mueller stated that he will contact an analyst from the police toxicology unit “who will explain how some of the most common drugs that facilitate sexual assaults and date rapes work, how quickly they are metabolized, and what their side effects look like.”
Cohen responded,
“A toxicologist can offer whatever opinion they wish, but there is no toxicology report, no urine, blood, or DNA.”
Cohen was not permitted to allude to testimony from the first trial; Olmedo reprimanded him several times for doing so.
However, he predicted that testimony from this trial would reveal that one of the women Masterson is accused of raping witnessed him preparing the allegedly drugged drink he gave her.
Cohen told the jury that another woman, a young actress who spent a night alone with Masterson at his home in 2003, did not mention drug use at the time.
“She told her mother and her friends about her date with Masterson, but she never once said, ‘I was drugged.'” Never,” Cohen said.
He stated that she only mentioned that she believed she had been sedated years after the investigation began.
Cohen stated that this and many other similarities between the women’s accounts are the results of them communicating with each other and “cross-pollinating” the details of their accounts, something they did repeatedly despite the detective’s warnings that such communication could taint the case against Masterson.
The allegations of drugging were reminiscent of the Bill Cosby trial, where women testified to similar experiences. Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned Cosby’s conviction, which was the result of two of his own trials.
The Associated Press does not typically identify individuals who allege sexual assault. If convicted, Masterson, age 47, could face 45 years in prison.
Mueller also told the jury that the women did not immediately report the abuse because Church of Scientology officials told them not to, and they were told that what happened to them was not rape.
Masterson is an influential church member. Each of the three women is a former member.
After the women’s testimony in the first trial, the church stated in a statement that it “has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of Scientologists or anyone else to law enforcement.”
Olmedo will also allow expert witnesses to testify on these policies, which is a departure from the first trial.
Cohen stated that prosecution expert Claire Headley, a former member of the church’s leadership, works “to rid the world of Scientology, rid people of Scientology,” and warned the jury that they would “hear tremendous bias” in Headley’s testimony. On the defense witness list is her current high-level Scientologist father-in-law.
In support of Masterson’s accusers, former Scientologist and actor Leah Remini sat in the front row of the courtroom.
Masterson, who has been free on bond since his arrest in 2020, sat at the defense table with a large coterie of supporters behind him, many if not all of whom had attended his first trial.
His wife, model, and actor Bijou Phillips, his sister-in-law, “One Day at a Time” actor Mackenzie Phillips, and his brother, “Malcolm in the Middle” actor Christopher Masterson, were among those present.
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