Prosecutors announced on Tuesday that they will pursue a second trial againstDanny Masterson, after a jury deadlocked on three rape charges at the actor’sfirst trial in November.
Masterson, 46, is accused of forcibly raping three women at his home in theHollywood Hills from 2001 to 2003. He was a star of the Fox sitcom “That ’70sShow” at the time.
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“Our office has decided to retry this case,” Deputy District Attorney ReinholdMueller told the court.
Though they could not reach a verdict, the jurors leaned toward acquittal,with votes of 10-2, 8-4 and 7-5 on the three counts.
Mueller argued that the jury ignored supporting testimony in the case.
“Not giving these victims another chance with a jury who can sit there andconsider all of the evidence — win, lose or draw — that would be aninjustice,” Mueller said.
Judge Charlaine Olmedo denied a defense request to dismiss the case. She setdate of March 29 for jury selection.
Defense attorney Philip Cohen argued that it was unlikely that any jury wouldvote unanimously to convict. He said the first jury had thoroughly examinedthe evidence, and that no new evidence would be likely to change the outcome.
“It’s not that things were ignored that Mr. Mueller thinks were important orsignificant,” Cohen said. “It’s that things were discussed and not believed tobe important to decision-making for some of the jurors.”
Olmedo held that Cohen’s arguments about what a future jury might do were“speculative and unsupported by the facts.”
“It appears there are many other witnesses the People could choose to call ordifferent arguments the People could choose to make,” Olmedo said. “Adifferent outcome at a retrial is at least a possibility.”
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The trial put an unwelcome spotlight on the Church of Scientology, which wasaccused of trying to cover up the allegations against a high-profile member.Prosecutors alleged that Masterson’s success as an actor gave him a highstatus within the church, and that he felt “entitled” to have sex with thewomen regardless of their wishes.
The women each took the stand over the course of the month-long trial, oftengiving emotional testimony about the assaults and the harsh consequences theyfaced for coming forward. Two of them broke down on the stand, and oneappeared to have a panic attack at one point, saying she couldn’t breathe.
The women, who have all since left Scientology, said they feared beingexcommunicated from the church for going to the police.
The DA’s office initially declined to file a case against the actor in 2004,after the first accuser gave a report to the LAPD.
In late 2016, the three accusers found each other and collectively reportedhim. They initially expressed frustration with what they saw as the slow paceof the LAPD investigation. Prosecutors eventually filed the charges threeyears later under California’s “one strike” sex crime law, which carries amaximum sentence of 15 years to life for each charge.
All three women testified that the church’s teachings made it hard for them toconceptualize the assaults as “rape.” Two of them said they reported theallegation to church authorities, and were discouraged from going to thepolice.
Cohen argued that Scientology was irrelevant to the case, and he sought tominimize any mention of it. Nevertheless, he said in his closing argument thatScientology was brought up more than 700 times. Cohen focused his case ondiscrepancies in the various accounts the women had given to investigators,and argued that the allegations were riddled with “fabrications.”
At the conclusion of the first trial, Cohen argued that the women’scredibility was a key factor in the vote count in favor of acquittal.
In court on Tuesday, Cohen said that the testimony had given rise to “a wholeslew of new questions,” and said that further discovery will be needed. Thecourt set dates of Feb. 16 and March 6 for a status update and pre-trialmotions.
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