Law&Crime Sidebar - 'That ‘70s Show’ Actor’s Attempt to Delay Rape Trial Fails

Episode Date: August 19, 2022

That 70s Show Actor Danny Masterson tries to delay his upcoming rape trial, a trial that may have ramifications for The Church of Scientology! Jesse Weber and journalist Tony Ortega discuss.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:Get 20% OFF @manscaped + Free Shipping with promo code SIDEBAR at https://www.manscaped.com/ !GUESTS:Tony Ortega, Former editor in chief of the Village Voice and has been writing about Scientology since 1995. His Substack is called The Underground Bunker, where he writes daily about Scientology's controversies: https://tonyortega.substack.com/LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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will 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. Your attorneys may appear in court on your behalf of that I be present. Yes, sir. Do you also understand that you must be present anytime the court orders you to be present for any substantive hearing, for any preliminary hearing, grand trial, and brandy disposition in this matter? Yes, sir. That 70-show actor Danny Masterson tries to delay his upcoming rape trial in a very unique way.

Journalist Tony Ortega comes on to break it all down. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. So an interesting twist in the case of Danny Masterson. That 70-show actor is facing charges that he raped. three women between 2001 and 2003 out in Los Angeles, and both he and the alleged victims in this case are Scientologists. Now, his trial has been scheduled for October, but as we're about to get into, Masterson's attorney, Sean Hawley, attempted to delay the trial in an interesting

way. I'm joined right now by journalist Tony Ortega, who wrote a great piece on this on his substack, the underground bunker, where he writes daily about Scientology controversies, and he's been following the Masterson case from the very beginning. Tony is the former editor, and chief of the village voice and he's been writing about Scientology since 1995. Tony, great to have you here on Sidebar. Jesse, thank you so much for having me on. This is quite an interesting case. It really is, and I was hoping he might be able to break it down for us. What was Masterson's argument for delaying the trial? And by the way, just to make sure, I think you broke the story on this. Yeah, earlier in the year, Danny had managed to get a six-week delay by firing

his first set of attorneys, Tom Mesero and Sharon Applebaum, and then he was represented by Sean Hawley and Philip Cohen. At that point, Sean Hawley then attempted to get him another delay, push it back from October 11th to January. And her excuse was that she's handling the arbitration of Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer, who has been suspended by Major League Baseball for two years over allegations that he mistreated some women. And she was trying to claim, Sean Hawley was claiming that the Bauer arbitration started on May 23rd and she didn't become Masterson's attorney until May 31st. Now, I could see that she was trying to get a delay. I wasn't sure what it was based on because it's supposed to be super secret that she's working on the Bauer thing. But then

I found in the docket, she had submitted a letter describing the situation that she was handling Trevor Bowers' arbitration. So I made that public, and I also pointed out in my story that although she officially became counsel on May 31st, she was first hired by Danny last fall. By January, she was issuing subpoenas under her own name, and by February, she and Cohen were handling everything. So I think it was a little disingenuous that she was saying that the Bower arbitration had started before she became Danny's attorney. And I think the judge saw that as well. And so Friday, they had a hearing over Holly's request. And the judge just said, no, you know. And when I first published my story about this, the victim, one of the victims,

who goes by the name Jane Doe One, she and her attorneys put out a statement saying, look, you know, Danny Masterson is facing possible life in prison over violently raping three women. And that's supposed to take a backseat to a baseball pitcher's arbitration? They were outraged. So Judge Charlene O'Meto has held firm, and she is saying this trial is starting October 11th, and she has ordered that a jury pool report to her courtroom that day. So, you know, Danny's got less than two months now to figure out this attorney problem he's got. Support for Cybar is brought to you by Manscape, the go-to line for men's grooming products. I'll talk to you right now about the performance package 4.0. It is an amazing, amazing bundle. First, they have the lawnmower

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Was it some strategic move, you think? I mean, to try to make this happen was pretty interesting. And again, using a baseball player's arbitration is a kind of a unique excuse that clearly didn't work. Right. Well, Danny's been trying everything. I remember when he was, I first broke this story that he was being investigated by the LAPD in 2017. He wasn't charged by the DA until June 2020. And at that point, he did what's called, he filed a demur.

Now, in civil lawsuits, attorneys will tell you, or they tell me, that demurs are very common. But they're very rare in criminal cases. I've had several attorneys tell me they've never seen a demur in a criminal case. And the reason I bring that up is I just want to give your listeners, some sense that Danny has tried literally everything to either derail, dismiss, or delay this case. So I think this was just the latest strategy they came up with was to, you know, Holly use her involvement in the Bauer thing. But it didn't work. But does it make you see, does it make you feel a little bit like he's not taking it seriously? Now, let me be clear. In the legal system,

right, defendants can use whatever term legal tools they can use to their advantage. But we just covered the Alex Jones trial, right? And that was a whole trial about a guy who arguably didn't take the whole process seriously. Is there a part of you after covering this and seeing this latest development that makes you think maybe Masterson's not taking this seriously? I think he is taking it seriously. I think he's spent an incredible amount of money on four different attorneys now. And like I said, they've filed motion and petition and appeal after another. I think he is taking it seriously. And I think they've dug very deep to get the evidence they need. But, you know, I have to tell you, this year in particular, the judge has just not put up with some of their crazier strategies, and she's made it clear that some things that they want to bring into this case are not going to come in. So I think it should be pretty clear to Madison by this point that he needs a very vigorous defense, and he's only got less than two months to prepare for it. I think they've been working hard, but, you know, if he thinks he's, you know, I think he's the kind of guy that wants to roll the dice. You know, I think he feels like, look, you never know what a jury is going to say. And especially with these kind of cases, it's clear from what they've done so far.

Of course, they're going to question the women's credibility. That's what you do in a case like this. So, you know, I think he wants to go to trial. Now, whether his attorneys are prepared, that's another question. You think they are? Well, I think they have a lot of material. And I think Colin, Philip Cohen in particular, has done some uh has had some success in some similar cases but so far this year in judge

omato's courtroom he has not been very effective i mean at points she has literally told him okay you've said that enough times move on and that's just not a good sign for an attorney in a courtroom right i mean it just it now now he won't be playing to her in the trial he'll be playing to the jury and and maybe the things he's doing will work but it just seems like this case might be a bit much for him and if sean holly can't make it you know danny might be in trouble you had mentioned striking at the credibility of these alleged victims do you have a sense of what the defense strategy is i mean we don't i i mean a lot of people might not be following this and so what there are ways about these stories what we should know about each one of these alleged victims and how

they claim Masterson raped them. Right. Well, let me give you a quick background basic on the case. This, Danny Masterson is a celebrity Scientologist, and he's accused of forcibly raping three women between 2001 and 2003 who were at that time also Scientologists. They aren't any longer. The DA said that it actually considered the allegations of five women and just charged on three. And the other thing that's interesting about these three women is they testified last year in a preliminary hearing. So we got to see their live testimony already. And they each have similar stories about being drugged, being violently raped, being threatened if they said anything. And I think that's something the prosecution is going to try to emphasize is the similarity between these cases. The defense

clearly is saying that these women are liars, that they have coordinated their testimony, that They've enhanced their testimony over the years. But that's pretty standard. Isn't that pretty standard for these kind of cases? It's to go after the credibility of the women that way. And so I think that the jury will have a big job to decide who's telling the truth. And in the preliminary hearing last May, I can tell you, Judge Olmeadow seemed very impressed by the credibility of these three women. But again, she won't be making the verdict.

The jury will. Yeah, I covered the Harvey Weinstein case. So the idea of the credibility of the accusers is the central focus of a defense. I am curious, though, the purpose of the role Scientology will play here because I have two questions here about that. One, how do you imagine that's going to come up either by the state prosecutors or by even Masterson in his defense in some way? And two, the Church of Scientology, I have to imagine is watching this unfold. Well, we got a real surprise last May because, I mean, part of the case is that these women did not come forward sooner, first of all, because they didn't know about each other, and second of all, because they were, they feared retaliation by the church. And there is a parallel civil lawsuit. The women are suing the Church of Scientology saying that since they came forward, they've been subjected to harassment by the church. So that's a separate item. And when the preliminary hearing happened last May, Jesse, even I was shocked at how much. Scientology is a part of the case. Not only because the women say that they didn't come

forward sooner, but also because, you know, Scientology, its policies came into testimony, because it's literally in their written rules. You're not supposed to turn in a fellow Scientologist to law enforcement. Well, it's civil authorities, the word that's used. And this became an issue in the case. And I can tell you that Scientology itself is hopping mad, that it has been mentioned in this case, to the point where earlier this year, one of Scientology's attorneys tried to intervene in this case. And they're not a party. So I remember writing about that at the time. I've never seen anything like that. And I have to assume that in the trial, it's going to be even worse for the Church of Scientology, because they're going to be bringing in other Scientologists

to testify. There's going to be evidence about the church trying to cover things up, trying to encourage these women not to speak. So, you know, again, last May's preliminary hearing. had a ton of Scientology in it, I wrote about it at my website. So that just tells me that coming up in the trial itself is really going to be bad for the Church of Scientology. Other than the PR of this night, the PR nightmare of it, is there certain practices that they were afraid of the public knowing that could be relevant here? I mean, that's the concern that I would imagine that they might have when we're dealing with such a sensitive and alleged criminal conduct. Well, let me just give you an example. Jane Doe, one,

alleges that she was attacked by Madison at his house in April 2003 and that, you know, she was a Scientologist at the time. She immediately went to the church. And the church told her not to report this to law enforcement. And not only that, they then made her pay for about $15,000 worth of counseling, special Scientology auditing, it's called, in which she was instructed to find instances in examples in her past lives that would make her a victim in this lifetime. So, I mean, it all gets really mixed up in their bizarre beliefs and their bizarre practices. And I think all of that is going to come out at the trial. So the fact that, you know, Scientologists will tell you that if you become a victim of a serious crime, it's your own fault.

This is a key concept in Scientology. You have pulled it in, is what their phrase is. And I think that's going to be coming out in this trial, and it's just going to look really bad for Scientology. I'm sorry to ask you, pulled it in. Am I understanding that correctly? That's right. If you have become very ill, if you have been victimized in a serious crime, you have pulled it in. You are responsible for becoming a victim.

And like I said, this woman had to pay $15,000 in counseling to try to find out what evil things she had done in previous lifetimes that would make her a victim in this lifetime. That's the kind of thing that's going to come out in this trial with the world watching. Wow. Has David Miscavich, who's the leader of the Church of Scientology, has he said anything about this? He has it. He is a named defendant in the civil lawsuit that I mentioned, where the, victims are suing the church not over the rapes themselves. They're suing the church and Danny Madison for what they say has been a campaign of harassment since they came forward. And David Muscavich has escaped service. It's been three years now, Jesse, and they have not been able to find him to serve him. So that's basically his comment on the whole thing. He doesn't want to

be included in it. They don't know where he is? They have not been able to find him. I can tell you that he has moved from California to Florida in recent years, and there are multiple process servers looking for him in multiple lawsuits. But so far, nobody's had any look. I'll be the first to tell you, okay? I'll be the first to tell you. I'm a major, major Tom Cruz fan. Okay. I love Tom Cruise. Can't they ask him? You know, they're best friends. Unfortunately, the law doesn't work that way. You can't serve somebody through their best friend, But they're very tight. I mean, David Muscovich was Tom Cruise's best man at both of his weddings to Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes.

And he actually went on the honeymoon with them when Tom and Katie went on their honeymoon. So these guys are real tight. And I would love to see, I don't never get access to him, but I would love to see a reporter ask Tom Cruise, why is your best friend, David Muscavage, avoiding service in these lawsuits? I don't think anybody's going to ask. that that's just my personal take um before i let you go tony i do want to ask you about this this is very serious for masterson because it's my understanding uh california law is pretty strict when it comes to this and also very unique when it comes to this right it's a one strike law my can you can you break that down for us real quick it's it's a one strike law that they can charge him under

because it's multiple forcible rapes it's three rapes and also um if you could the the state could not charge him on one of these individual crimes because of the statute of limitations. The way they get around that is that because they're charging him under the one strike law with multiple forcible rapes, if he's convicted of two or more, he's facing a potential life sentence. And when there's a potential life sentence involved, there's no statute of limitations. So that's why they're able to charge him on these. So if he's, if he is convicted that on all three. He's looking at 45 years to life in prison. And if he wants to plead to something lesser, he's only got, you know, about seven weeks left to go. Yeah, yeah, the clock is ticking.

Unbelievable. Tony Ortega, thanks so much for coming on to break this down. Where can people find you? My substack is tonyortega.com. I have a new story about Scientology every morning at 7 a.m. Eastern. All right, Tony, thank you so much. And everyone out there, thanks for joining us here on Sidebar. Sidebar is you can find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, please subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Sidebar is produced by Sam Goldberg, YouTube manager Robert Zoki, Alyssa Fisher as our booking producer, and video editor Michael Dyniger. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. Add free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app,

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