Actor Danny Masterson drugged then raped a few women at his Hollywood-location residence concerning 2001 and 2003, a prosecutor instructed jurors Monday in his opening statement in the retrial of the star of “That ’70s Show.”
Deputy District Lawyer Reinhold Mueller reported Masterson put substances into drinks that he gave to a longtime girlfriend and two women he knew by means of good friend circles all over the Church of Scientology, all of whom Masterson is charged with raping.
“The evidence will clearly show that they were being drugged,” Mueller instructed the jury. The defense denies these types of proof exists.
Immediate dialogue of drugging was missing from the initial trial — which finished in a mistrial when a jury deadlocked on all three counts — with Mueller as an alternative getting to imply it through the testimony of the females, who claimed they have been woozy, disoriented and at instances unconscious on the evenings they described the actor raping them.
But Los Angeles Excellent Courtroom Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo is permitting the direct assertion at the next trial.
Masterson’s attorney, Philip Cohen, reported in the protection opening assertion that individuals hazy stories and assertions are all the prosecution has, and he advised jurors, “there is no drugging demand in this circumstance.”
Lawyers for equally sides acknowledged that there is no forensic evidence of any substances Masterson might have offered the females because the police investigation that led to the two trials did not get started until finally about 15 several years soon after the situations.
But Mueller explained he will call an analyst from the police toxicology unit, “who will inform you how some of the most widespread drug-facilitated sexual assaults, how some of the most widespread date rape medication get the job done, how speedily they are metabolized, what facet effects seem like.”
Cohen responded that “a toxicologist can appear in opine to whatever they want, but there is no toxicology report, there’s no urine, no blood perform, no DNA.”
Cohen was not permitted to refer to testimony from the first trial — one thing Olmedo admonished him several moments for accomplishing — but he claimed he envisioned testimony this time would demonstrate that a single of the ladies Masterson is billed with raping watched him make the allegedly drugged consume her gave her.
Cohen told jurors that a different of the girls, a youthful actress who spent an evening by itself with Masterson at his residence in 2003, created no point out of drugging at the time.
“She spoke to her mom about how her day with Masterson went, she spoke to her mates, she did not at any time say to a person human being, ‘I was drugged.’ In no way,” Cohen mentioned.
She would only mention imagining she had been drugged several years later right after the investigation began, Cohen said.
This and numerous other similarities in between the women’s tales appear from them talking to just about every other and “cross-pollinating” the details of their accounts, one thing they did many periods even after the detective in the scenario warned them that these kinds of interaction could taint the situation in opposition to Masterson, Cohen explained.
The drugging allegations had echoes of the demo of Bill Cosby, exactly where girls testified to identical encounters. Cosby’s conviction soon after two trials of his personal was forever thrown out by Pennsylvania’s greatest court docket.
The Linked Press does not generally identify persons who say they have been sexually assaulted.
Masterson, 47, could get 45 several years in prison if convicted.
Mueller also advised jurors that the ladies did not promptly go to authorities because they had been instructed not to by officers in the Church of Scientology, and they ended up advised what happened to them was not rape.
Masterson is a notable member of the church. All 3 girls are previous associates.
The church reported in a assertion soon after the women’s testimony in the initial trial that it “has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting felony conduct of Scientologists, or of any person, to regulation enforcement.”
In a different variance from the first trial, Olmedo is allowing for expert witnesses to testify on all those insurance policies.
Cohen said that prosecution expert Claire Headley, a previous member of the church’s management team, is anyone who functions “to rid the planet of Scientology, rid men and women of Scientology,” and informed jurors they have been heading to “hear incredible bias” in her testimony. The pro on the defense witness list is her father-in-law, a existing substantial-amount Scientologist.
Actor Leah Remini, a former Scientologist who has turn out to be the church’s most prominent detractor on social media and by means of a Tv sequence she hosted showcasing dissident ex-members, sat in the entrance row of the courtroom in assistance of Masterson’s accusers.
Masterson, who has been totally free on bail considering the fact that his 2020 arrest, sat at the defense table, with a huge coterie of supporters powering him, a lot of if not all church customers, who also sat by his initial trial. They integrated his spouse, model and actor Bijou Phillips his sister-in-legislation, “One Day at a Time” actor Mackenzie Phillips and his brother, “Malcolm in the Middle” actor Christopher Masterson.
