Two legal professionals who utilised to characterize “That 70s Show” actor Danny Masterson have been strike with fines right after a Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom decide ruled they leaked confidential information and facts about the actor’s rape victims to the Church of Scientology’s law firm.
Thomas Mesereau and his co-counsel, Sharon Applebaum, were being sanctioned Wednesday, a week following Masterson was convicted of raping two women he met by way of the church, to which he however belongs.
Los Angeles County Judge Charlaine Olmedo, who presided about both of Masterson’s felony trials, hit Mesereau and Applebaum with fines for sharing discovery components from the prison circumstance with Vicki Podberesky, an attorney who was defending the church in a different civil accommodate submitted by Masterson’s accusers, according to court docket paperwork. The courtroom suggests that the lawyers ended up mindful of the court’s “repeated directives and orders to refrain from delivering criminal discovery to litigants and attorney’s in the civil case.”
Neither Mesereau nor Applebaum represented Masterson at either of his felony trials — the very first of which ended in November in a mistrial and the 2nd finished in May well with the actor being convicted of raping two of the a few women of all ages he was charged with sexually assaulting a long time back.
Mesereau and Applebaum represented Masterson when the actor was 1st arrested and accused in 2020 of raping a few females at his Hollywood Hills property in between 2001 and 2003. As these types of, Mesereau and Applebaum experienced “sole possession of the felony discovery” from at least Sept. 2020 via November 2021 soon after which time they ongoing to symbolize him alongside with additional counsel as a result of May possibly 2022, according to courtroom paperwork.
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