Law&Crime Sidebar - Elvis Presley's Daughter Expected to Testify in 'That '70s Show' Actor's Rape Trial

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Starting point is 00:00:35 keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Lisa Marie Presley may be called to testify for the prosecution in Danny Masterson's sexual assault trial. She left the Church of Scientology years ago, so what's the possible connection? I'm Ann Jeanette Levy and welcome to Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. This news was reported about Lisa Marie Presley, possibly being called as a prosecution witness by the underground bunker. Tony Ortega has been covering the Church of Scientology for years and first broke the news that Danny Masterson was under investigation for sexual assault several years ago. And Tony is joining us right now to talk about this news.

Starting point is 00:01:26 Tony, welcome back to Sidebar. Thanks again and as always for coming on. Thanks for having me back again, Anjanet. So Lisa Marie Presley, everybody knows that name, the daughter of Elvis Presley. She used to be a member of the Church of Scientology. So tell us about when you learned that she could possibly be called as a witness for the prosecution. Yeah, I've actually suspected that she might be involved for quite a while. Last year, the three women who are the alleged victims in this case testified for the first time live in court at a preliminary hearing.

Starting point is 00:01:58 and one of the victims, the one going by the name Jane Doe One, repeatedly made reference to Elisa, who was a friend of hers and friend of other people that were around Danny Masterson at that time. I have since confirmed that those are references to Lisa Marie Presley, and that Lisa Marie Presley was very close with people that were very close to both Danny Masterson and Jane Doe One. They were all part of this Scientologist click together. And she mentions multiple times in her testimony last year, for example, that her testimony, testimony is that after Danny attacked her, he admonished her. You're not going to tell Lisa about this. That was her testimony last year. She did not use the full name in that testimony. I've now determined that that was a reference to Lisa Marie Presley and that Danny did not want Jane Doe 1 to say anything to Lisa. So that's the background. I had heard that she might get involved in this case, but then this week I confirmed that the prosecution has notified the defense that they plan to call Lisa Marie. Presley as a witness. And as you pointed out, Angenet, that does not guarantee that she's actually

Starting point is 00:03:03 going to appear in this trial. But it's pretty big news, I think, because like I said, I think she's been around this case all along and just only now is being publicly identified with it. You just mentioned it again. Just because somebody is on a witness list for a trial doesn't mean they automatically are going to testify. There are some cases where you might have a couple of hundred witnesses on the list. And it's just an obligation of the state in the defense to notify the other side, hey, we may be calling these people. So that's very common in trials that this happens. And we actually have a number because you're right. It could be hundreds, but Philip Cohen did reveal in court this week that the prosecution is planning on calling 12 law enforcement officers,

Starting point is 00:03:47 18 civilians, and two experts, only one of those two experts the judge allowed in. So 12 or 18 civilians. That's not hundreds. I mean, so I would say that if the prosecution is only planning on calling 18, the chances that someone like Lisa and Re Presley on that list actually getting in may be fairly good. But like we say, we're being careful. We don't know for sure if she will or not. And we don't know for sure. And so we want to, we don't want to hype this up and get everybody excited because this is how it works in court. If she's one of the 18 civilians, It sounds like potentially, potentially, and I don't want to make this leap, but, you know, and you hear my friend Lisa, we all hear Lisa, that could be anybody, but Lisa Marie Presley, obviously, it's not like

Starting point is 00:04:32 she said I told my friend Lisa Marie Presley. She just knows her as Lisa. Maybe Lisa Marie Presley, and this would be speculation on my part, did later learn of this, or maybe Jane Doe did tell her something. We just don't know. We don't know yet. I want to stress that I don't know why they're calling her or what she's going to testify to. I'm trying to find that out. That's a very interesting question. In Jane Doe 1's testimony last year, when she talked about Lisa, she also talked about Luke Watson,

Starting point is 00:04:59 and she said that Luke Watson was living with Lisa and was very close to her. That is a fact. Luke Watson and Lisa Marie Presley were actually dating between 1998 and 1999, and they remained close. And like I said, they were all part of this group. So that's very consistent. I really, I have no doubt that the Lisa, Jane Doe 1, mentioned in her testimony is Lisa Marie Presley. The only thing I'm questioning is how does that make

Starting point is 00:05:24 her part of the case, though? I don't, I haven't figured that part out yet. And Lisa Marie Presley left the Church of Scientology some years ago. And a lot of people have left the Church of Scientology. A lot of people leave a lot of churches for different reasons. But she did leave the church. In a very interesting way that I wrote about several years ago, actually, the way she got in when, you know, her father, Elvis Presley, was famously very skeptical of Scientology. and wanted nothing to do with it. But when he died in 1977, he and Priscilla were divorced at that point, and Priscilla, of course, was going through a very difficult time. She reached out to John Travolta.

Starting point is 00:05:59 And we know this because of John Travolta's assistant at that time with Spanky Taylor. And Spanky Taylor has told this story about how she helped John bring Priscilla into Scientology at that point. And I think at that point, Lisa Marie was about nine years old. So after that, she was raised in Scientology. And she became a very prominent, very reliable celebrity for the Church of Scientology. But we first started noticing that something was going on. She put out some songs in 2012, which seemed to have an unmistakable message about getting away from this group that she didn't like anymore. And then Ron Miscavage, the father of the leader of the Church of Scientology, David Miscavage, told me that after he escaped from the church, he was very close with Lisa Marie.

Starting point is 00:06:40 And it's Ron Miscavage who told me the story about how Lisa was really unhappy with the way David was treating his own father. and that Lisa Marie tried to have a showdown with David Mascavage, the leader of Scientology, in October 2014 in Clearwater, Florida. And instead, David Miscavage sent his two sisters to argue with her. This is Ron Miscavage's story. Unfortunately, he died last year. It's an amazing story about what Lisa Marie went through on her way out of Scientology. Wow.

Starting point is 00:07:09 That sounds really, really wild. I guess I would just expect the daughter of Elvis, even though she was so young when he died, sadly. and tragically of a drug overdose, that I would expect her to be kind of headstrong. So that doesn't surprise me. Well, what I've been told is she's tried to imagine growing up in that sort of circumstance. And, you know, she has not had a normal life for sure. But I was told one thing that's very strong with her as family. And Ron told me that what upset her so much was that David Miscavage would not let Ron see

Starting point is 00:07:44 his own daughters, David's sisters. That's what's in Scientology called disconnection because Ron had escaped Scientology. So Ron's description to me was that Lisa Marie was very offended by that because of her own feelings about family ties. And that's what ultimately made Lisa Marie leave Scientology in 2014. Wow. That is very, very interesting. Well, Tony Ortega, we will be watching the underground bunker very closely for all of the

Starting point is 00:08:10 latest updates because I think we're all very interested to know what on earth Lisa Marie Presley will be asked to testify should she be called to the witness stand. So thank you. You bet. Thank you is always coming on. Thank you, Angelette. I'll try to find answers for that. And, you know, jury selection starts Tuesday. All right. We'll be watching. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime Sidebar podcast. It is produced by Sam Goldberg, Michael Dininger, and Logan Harris. Bobby Zoki is our YouTube manager. Alyssa Fisher is our booking producer. And Kiera Bronson handles our social media. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast.

Starting point is 00:08:50 And of course, you can always watch it on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Ann Janette Levy, and we will see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series, ad-free right? now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

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Law&Crime Sidebar - Elvis Presley's Daughter Expected to Testify in 'That '70s Show' Actor's Rape Trial

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