That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson to stand trial on 3 rape charges
Afterwards 3 days of dramatic and often emotional testimony from 3 women who said That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson raped them most twenty years ago, a judge on Friday (May 28) establish that he must stand up trial.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo ordered Masterson to trial on iii counts of rape past force or fear, charges that could get him up to 45 years in prison house.
She said she found the women's testimony credible for the purposes of the preliminary hearing, where the bar for sufficient bear witness is significantly lower than it volition be at the forthcoming trial.
That trial volition represent the rare prosecution of a Hollywood effigy in the #MeToo era despite dozens of investigations past police and the Los Angeles district attorney, most of which take ended without charges.
Masterson, 45, has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers said they would prove his innocence, and during the hearing repeatedly challenged the women on discrepancies in stories they alleged the accusers had coordinated in the years since their alleged rapes. The lawyers said the age of the incidents, which date from 2001 and 2003, made authentic memories impossible.
"Memories fade and memories modify," Masterson attorney Sharon Appelbaum said.
The player had no visible reaction to the judge's decision as he sabbatum in court, with a small grouping of family and friends behind him. Masterson'south lead attorney Thomas Mesereau, who as well defended Michael Jackson and Bill Cosby in their sexual misconduct cases, declined to comment outside court.
During the hearing, Mesereau suggested that police, prosecutors and witnesses were tainted by anti-religious bias against the Church of Scientology. Masterson is a prominent Scientologist, all three women are sometime Scientologists.
Scientology and its teachings came up so frequently during the hearing that the gauge felt compelled to say the church was not a defendant. The organization is likely to loom even larger at trial, where most of the witnesses volition be either members or former members.
In her ruling, the guess said that a church building certificate on members not going to police about other members and assuasive the institution to mediate instead, "sufficiently explains to this course the hesitancy of these women" from reporting their accusations to police for years.
Appelbaum said the three women had colluded to class a "sisterhood" that "seems to desire to take downward Mr Masterson and take downward Scientology."
Appelbaum said they had spoken to each other, at times in violation of orders, changing accounts they had initially given police force. "Over time their stories are becoming more similar to 1 another," she said. "They're taking the linguistic communication of one some other."
Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said the testimony was "anything merely" coordinated. "These were not apposite statements," Mueller said. "They were heartfelt, and they each had their versions of what happened. If there is whatever consistency in these statements, it was because the accused was consistent in these acts."
READ: Judge to hear testify on That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson's rape charges
One woman, identified in court merely as Jen B, testified that in 2003, Masterson, a friend from the church where she had been born a member, had taken her upstairs from the hot tub at his Los Angeles home and raped her in his bedroom. Masterson's attorney said the two had consensual sexual practice. They pointed out that her testimony that Masterson threatened her with a gun hadn't appeared in an initial police report in 2004.
Another woman, identified in court only equally Christina B, was five years into a relationship with Masterson in 2001 when she said she woke to him raping her during the night, and fought dorsum and got him to terminate by pulling his hair. Masterson'due south lawyers argued that that she had reframed the incident in recent years only afterward another alleged rape she reported could non atomic number 82 to charges.
The third woman, identified in court only as Northward Trout, said Masterson raped her on a nighttime in 2003 afterwards he texted telling her to come to his house, saying she had fix boundaries and was clear there was to be no sex. Defense attorneys said she knew she was going to his house for sexual purposes, that she voluntarily stayed near of the nighttime and that she sought a dating human relationship with him that she did non get.
The Associated Printing does non typically name people who say they were victims of sexual corruption.
Defense attorneys also said a lawsuit filed by the women showed they were seeking financial gain. The prosecutor countered that the lawsuit was filed to terminate the harassment they had been receiving from the church since coming frontward. The church has denied all the allegations in the lawsuit.
The allegations happened at the height of Masterson's fame, when he starred every bit Steven Hyde on Play tricks Television'southward retro sitcom That '70s Evidence from 1998 to 2006 alongside Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace.
He had reunited with Kutcher on the Netflix Western sitcom The Ranch simply was written off the evidence when the LAPD investigation of him was revealed in March 2017.
Masterson, who has been costless on bail since his June arrest, was told to return to court for a new arraignment on June 7.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/that-70s-show-actor-danny-masterson-stand-trial-on-3-rape-charg-232876
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