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Red Carpet Report on Mingle Media TV from Culver City, USA - Danny Masterson at the World Premiere of Marvel's Ant-Man #AntMan #AntManPremiere - DSC_0649CC BY-SA 2.0
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Trial is scheduled to begin Tuesday for actor Danny Masterson, who is charged with raping three women at his Hollywood Hills home between 2001 and 2003.
At a hearing Monday, Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo said she will ask prospective jurors to fill out questionnaires that ask what they have heard about the case against the actor, who is known for his work on the television series “That ’70s Show” and “The Ranch.”
Masterson, now 46, was charged in June 2020 with three counts of rape by force or fear.
Masterson allegedly raped a 23-year-old woman between January and December 2001. He is also charged with raping a woman who was 28 at the time and a 23-year-old woman he had invited to his home some time between October and December 2003, according to Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller.
At a May 2021 hearing in which the defendant was ordered to stand trial, the judge found the alleged victims’ delays in coming forward to be reasonable given the tenets of the Church of Scientology, of which the actor is a longtime adherent. She said the women, who were also Scientology members, hesitated to contact police for fear of running afoul of church rules and ending up isolated from friends and family members.
Masterson was arrested in June 2020 by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division.
He remains free on $3.3 million bail.
In December 2017, Netflix announced that Masterson had been fired from the Emmy-winning scripted comedy “The Ranch” amid sexual assault allegations.
The actor said then that he was “very disappointed” and “it seems as if you are presumed guilty the moment you are accused.” He also “denied the outrageous allegations” and said he looked forward to “clearing my name once and for all.”
A civil suit filed in August 2019 against Masterson and the Church of Scientology by the three women involved in the criminal case and one woman who was not a member of the church alleges they were stalked and harassed after filing sexual assault allegations against the actor with Los Angeles police.
The District Attorney’s Office declined to file sexual assault charges against Masterson in two other alleged incidents, citing insufficient evidence on one and the statute of limitations on the other.
