LOS ANGELES (AP) — Prosecutors on Tuesday described a 20-year-old rape allegation against “That ’70s Show” actor Danny Masterson by three women.
In opening statements to Masterson’s trial, Assistant District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said the two women had been thrown into his hot tub after having drunk a few drinks, exhausted and passed out. One of them said he dragged her to bed where she regained consciousness and found him having sex with her. said he found him on top of her.
Masterson’s attorneys attributed the many commonalities to these allegations, citing alleged victims violating criminal warnings not to speak to each other and calling their testimony “cross-pollinated.” and undermined their credibility.
Defense attorney Philip Cohen was told in Los Angeles Superior Court that “talking to each other would pollute this case.” target.”
Masterson, 46, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of forced rape at his Hollywood home between 2001 and 2003.
Cohen urged jurors not to consider Masterson’s ties to the Church of Scientology, and his ties to the case, but Mueller said that helps explain why.
The two alleged victims first went to church to report what had happened to them, and when they reported it to authorities and told others it was not rape, they were told by close friends and family members I was told I would be deported.
“You essentially become an enemy of the church,” Muller said. “You lose it all.”
Cohen said the incident had nothing to do with religion, and he repeatedly objected when it was brought up.
Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo sternly pointed out to lawyers that Scientology would not dominate the case.
The trial witness list is filled with members and former members of churches that have a strong presence in Los Angeles and count many prominent members as members. The list includes former member Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis Presley’s daughter, Michael Jackson’s ex-wife, and one of the victims’ friends.
One of the women was Masterson’s longtime girlfriend. One of her personal assistants was a close friend and the third was an actress, a new acquaintance.
A friend of his assistant was unhappy with the way the Scientology Ethics Committee handled her complaint, so she called the police. No charges were filed at that time.
In 2016, she connected and shared stories with an ex-girlfriend, one of the accusers. Ms. Masterson’s ex-girlfriend made her realize she was raped by her husband after she told her story, she said. A third woman, she turned herself in to police in 2017.
Cohen said the core of the defense was a “sizzle reel of contradictions” between what the women originally said and how their explanations changed over time.
A woman who said she was raped after passing out after drinking a fruity red vodka drink Masterson gave her told police she had consensual sex with him under similar circumstances several months earlier. now says they disagreed. Masterson will not be prosecuted for these allegations.
Another victim went to Masterson’s house after he invited her over. She set a ground rule not to have sex with him and told him, “Don’t have sex,” multiple times as the affair progressed, Muller said. The assault was so forceful that the woman was vomiting in her mouth and “limping like a rag doll,” he said.
But Cohen claimed the woman spent hours in bed talking and listening to music with Masterson, and after she left, he thought, “We’re probably going to start dating.” He said she was disappointed when he didn’t call or email her.
An ex-girlfriend said she had consensual sex with Masterson two more times after she broke up with him.
If convicted, Masterson could face up to 45 years in prison.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly.
Masterson was one of the first Hollywood figures to be indicted during the #MeToo era. He is one of the high-profile sexual assault cases that went to trial around the time of his fifth anniversary from reporting the accusations. To Harvey Weinstein, the Hollywood mogul who turned the #MeToo movement into an international reckoning.
Weinstein’s Second Rape and Sexual Assault Trial — he’s already been convicted in New York — happening simultaneously in the hall just below Masterson.In New York, the civil trial of actor Kevin Spacey has begun For Writer/Director Paul Haggisboth have been accused of sexual assault.
Haggis himself is a Scientology dissident, and the judge has allowed him to argue that the church is behind the allegations against him.
From 1998 to 2006, Masterson starred as Stephen Hyde on Fox’s “That ’70s Show,” starred Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, and Topher Grace, and launched a Netflix reboot with “That ’90s Show.” We are planning.
Masterson reunited with Kutcher on Netflix comedy ‘The Lunch’ However, the show was canceled when an LAPD investigation came to light in December 2017.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter. https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton