Danny Masterson Drugged Rape Victims, Believed Scientology Would Protect Him, Prosecutors Tell Jury In Retrial Closing Argument

deadline.com:

“It all starts with a drink,” said deputy District Attorney Ariel Anson today in closing arguments in Danny Masterson’s rape retrial. “How many times have you heard the defendant ask, would you like a drink?

This is his play book, this is what he does…how he ensures to get what he wants.” Linking Masterson to the Church of Scientology, of which the defendant is a long time member, Anson again and again this morning in downtown LA hit the That 70s Show actor hard with a pattern of deliberate behavior and protection from the David Miscavige-led organization    “Like all predators, the defendant carefully sought out his prey,” Anson declared of the three Jane Does at the heart of this criminal case. “What better hunting ground?” the prosecutor added of Masterson allegedly assaulting fellow Scientologists, who were later supposedly threatened with excommunication if they went to law enforcement. “She needed to figure it out …it’s your fault,” Anson exclaimed the Church told Christina B, a Jane Doe who was involved in a long-term relationship with Masterson during the time period when the actor’s profile exploded due to the success of That 70s Show. “It’s not the law,” the deputy D.A.

told the jurors of a Scientology ethics officer’s supposed reaction to Christina B’s claims that Masterson anally raped her and she had to had let the matter be handled internally.

Arrested in 2020 over the alleged assaults that occurred between 2001 and 2003 in his Hollywood Hills house, Masterson faces up to 45 years in a California state prison if found guilty on all three rape counts this time round.