Actor Danny Masterson has been found guilty of raping two women between 2001 and 2003 in a retrial.
WARNING: This story contains graphic content that some readers may find disturbing.
The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for more than a week before reaching a verdict on two of three charges. Jurors were given the case last week, after prosecutors finally finished their rebuttal following all-day closing arguments.
Jury unable to reach verdict in 2022 In 2022, a jury was unable to reach a verdict in the case against the actor involving rape allegations by three women, and Los Angeles Judge Charlaine Olmedo declared a mistrial. This week, prosecutors said in their closing argument on Tuesday that Masterson had drugged the women in order to assault them, then relied on his status as a prominent member in the Church of Scientology to avoid consequences for decades.
"You don't want to have sex? You don't have a choice," Deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson told the jury.
"The defendant makes that choice for these victims. And he does it, over and over and over again."
After the closing arguments, Masterson's attorney, Philip Cohen, made a motion for a mistrial, one of several that he made during the three-week trial, because of the prosecution's mention of drugging, which was not part of the charges.
Judge Olmedo rejected the motion, and said the prosecution was acting within the bounds of her pre-trial decision by allowing them to assert that the women were drugged.
In the 2022 trial, Masterson, 47, pleaded not guilty to raping three women at his home between 2001 and 2003.
During the defence's closing, Mr Cohen told jurors the women's accounts were so full of inconsistencies, there was more than enough reasonable doubt for jurors to acquit Masterson.
He emphasised the lack of any physical evidence of drugging, with the investigation that led to Masterson's arrest coming 15 years after the alleged rapes.
"Miss Anson presented a case as if she was arguing a drugging case," Mr Cohen said. "Maybe it's because there is no evidence of force or violence."
Scientology played an outsized role during the trial. Masterson is a member, and all three women are former members.
Prosecutors said the institution protected him, and helped convince the women that they were not raped, and could not go to authorities to report a fellow Scientologist in good standing. The church denied having any such policy.
Masterson played the roles of Steven Hyde in That '70s Show, Milo Foster in Men at Work and Jameson "Rooster" Bennett in The Ranch.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-01/danny-masterson-retrial/102361304
I don't see any shenanigans there.
Back in the 80's I met my ex-wife when she was 14 and I was sixteen. Our birthdays were one week apart and I was just under 2 years older than her.
One month after we met she turned 15 and I turned 17 a week later.
Under the law in our state back then we were both minors. No problems legally and no problems given the time in which we lived.
We went out together for 5 years, cohabitated and then got married, had 2 kids, enjoyed 13 more years of marriage and are still good friends to this day, even though we only had a good 18 year run.
People are too uptight abought age when it comes to teens with teens. If I had done the same thing today, the moment I turned 18 and did not dump her, I would be a child sex offender.
That is bullshit that I would have had to put our relationship on hold for 1 year, 11 months, and 3 weeks because of idiotic arbitrary laws that on paper can not give justice to real people who love each other. My children would not be alive today and my word would be beyond altered had I obeyed the law of man and not the law of my heart.
yep, yep.. you guys were only 2 years apart..that's different. I think those lefty freaks are trying to clump normal people like ya'll w/ real sick freaks adults who go for like children and toddlers.. reall sick shit. So I hope everyone use discernment and logic in such situations.
I met this black kid who was in deep shit in county jail, looking at real time because no matter how lenient the courts where, giving him chances out on the street but with stipulations that he could not see his girlfriend, he would end up back in jail.
The kid was simple minded in the sense that he could not rationalize the consequences of following his heart. He loved his gf, she loved him, the girl's mother had no problem with them being together despite him being a legal adult.
Yet in the eyes of the law (in which I see their reasoning too) he was a sex offender, and a domestic abuser. Then once inside the jail, a beautiful young man with limited capacity for understanding cause and effect kept getting into trouble with the guards, adding more and more time to his sentence with each violation.
All because two kids loved each other and the kid trapped in the system has genuinely limited capacity to understand why he was even there at all in the first place. The dude may never get out .
Edit: The truly perverted go unpunished because they are in the club but the relatively innocent have to jump through hoops of fire to comply with the laws written by the same people who trade their underage sex slaves like playing cards.