[ad_1]
Los Angeles (AP) — actor danny masterson A prosecutor told jurors in his opening statement that he drugged and then raped three women at his Hollywood-area home between 2001 and 2003 retrial Star of ’70s Show.
Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said Masterson added substances to drinks he gave to his girlfriend of many years and two women he met through his circle of Scientologist friends , Masterson was charged with rape.
“The evidence will show that they were drugged,” Mueller told the jury. The defense denied the existence of such evidence.
Drug use was not directly discussed in the first trial — which failed when the jury deadlocked on all three counts — and Mueller had to hint at it through the testimony of women who said they were dizzy , disorientated, and sometimes even unconscious at night, they described actors raping them.
But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo allowed a direct assertion in the second instance.
Masterson’s attorney, Philip Cohen, said in defense opening statements that those vague stories and assertions belonged to the prosecution, telling jurors that “there are no drug charges in this case.”
Lawyers for both parties acknowledged that there was no forensic evidence that Masterson might have given the women any substances because the police investigations that led to both trials did not begin until about 15 years after the events.
But Mueller said he would call an analyst in the police toxicology unit, “and he’d tell you how some of the most common drug-based sexual assaults happen, how some of the most common date-rape drugs work, they how quickly it is metabolized, and what side effects look like.”
Cohen responded, “Toxicologists can say all they want, but there are no toxicology reports, no urine, no blood tests, and no DNA.”
Cohen was not allowed to refer to the testimony from the first trial — Olmedo warned him repeatedly to do so — but he said he hoped this time the testimony would show that one of the women Masterson is accused of raping watched him Give her the allegedly drugged drink.
Cohen told jurors that another woman, a young actress, had spent a night alone at Masterson’s home in 2003 when she made no mention of drug use.
“She talked to her mom about how her date with Masterson went, she talked to her friends, and she never said to anyone, ‘I was drugged.’ Never,” Cohen said.
Years after the investigation began, Cohen said she would only mention that she believed she had been drugged.
This and many other similarities between these women’s stories come from the fact that they talked to each other and “cross-pollinated” the details of their narratives, many times even after the detectives on the case warned them that such exchanges might taint the case. Do Masterson, Cohen said.
Drug charges echo trial bill cosbyWhere Women witness similar experiences. Cosby’s Faith After two trials of his own, he was permanently dismissed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted.
If convicted, Masterson, 47, could face up to 45 years in prison.
Mueller also told jurors that the women did not immediately go to authorities because Church of Scientology officials told them not to, and they were told what happened to them was not rape.
Masterson was a prominent member of the church. All three women are former members.
The church released a statement after the woman testified in the first trial saying it “has no policy of prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct by Scientologists or anyone to law enforcement.”
In another difference from the first trial, Olmedo allowed expert witnesses to testify about the policies.
Prosecution expert Claire Headley, a former member of the church’s leadership team, is committed to “freeing the world from Scientology, freeing people from Scientology,” Cohen said, telling jurors they will be involved in her testimony “Hearing Huge Prejudice”. The expert on the defense witness list is her father-in-law, now a senior Scientologist.
Actor Leah Remini, a former Scientologist, has become the church’s most famous detractor on social media and through a TV series she hosts featuring dissident former members , sat in the front row of the courtroom in support of Masterson’s accusers.
Masterson, who has been out on bail since his arrest in 2020, sat on the defense bench with a large crowd of supporters, if not all, many church members behind him, who also attended his first trial. They include his wife, model and actor Bijou Phillips; his sister-in-law, “One Day at a Time” actor Mackenzie Phillips; and his brother, “Malcolm in the Middle” actor Christopher Masterson.
Follow Associated Press entertainment writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton
[ad_2]
Source link