This was the second rape trial for 47-year-old Danny Masterson. (File)
Los Angeles:
Actor Danny Masterson, a star of the sitcom “That ’70s Present,” was sentenced Thursday to at the least 30 years in jail for raping two girls at his dwelling 20 years in the past.
The US actor was convicted in Could of drugging after which raping fellow members of the Church of Scientology between 2001 and 2003 at his home within the swanky Hollywood Hills space of Los Angeles.
Imposing a sentence of 15 years-to-life on every rape conviction, to run consecutively, Choose Charlaine Olmedo mentioned she knew Masterson continued to protest his innocence.
“Mr. Masterson, you aren’t the sufferer right here,” she instructed him, including that his actions had taken away one other individual’s voice and selection.
Masterson, who’s married to actress Bijou Phillips, and who has a nine-year-old daughter, was ordered to register as a intercourse offender for the remainder of his life upon his launch from jail.
Considered one of Masterson’s victims, recognized as Jane Doe 2, instructed the actor in court docket: “You relish… hurting girls.”
“You lived your life behind a masks as two folks. However the true one sits right here,” she mentioned, including the world is “safer” with Masterson in jail.
It was the second rape trial for 47-year-old Masterson, after earlier proceedings had been declared a mistrial in November when a special jury was unable to achieve a unanimous choice.
The jury within the retrial deadlocked on one other rape cost in opposition to a 3rd girl. That cost was dismissed.
Masterson has been in custody awaiting sentencing since his conviction.
The actor rose to fame with the 1998 launch of retro sitcom “That ’70s Present,” the place he performed the character of Steven Hyde alongside fellow stars Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher.
He co-starred once more with Kutcher on Netflix’s “The Ranch,” however was fired in 2017 and written off the present after Los Angeles police confirmed they had been investigating a number of rape allegations in opposition to the actor.
The three girls on the coronary heart of the costs in opposition to Masterson had been members of the Church of Scientology on the time. Two of them mentioned church officers had discouraged them from contacting legislation enforcement.
Masterson’s attorneys in closing arguments questioned why the court docket had heard “a lot about Scientology,” and the protection had recommended that bias in opposition to the church may have been a motivating issue.
The Church of Scientology criticized the notion that it had tried to silence the complaints.
“The church has no coverage prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting legal conduct of anybody, Scientologists or not, to legislation enforcement,” a press release mentioned.
“Fairly the alternative, church coverage explicitly calls for Scientologists abide by all legal guidelines of the land.”
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