Danny Masterson trial: Ex-girlfriend says Church of Scientology told her not to report rape – National | 24CA News
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A former girlfriend of actor Danny Masterson testified Tuesday that he had grown more and more abusive and controlling throughout their five-year relationship when he raped her of their mattress in November of 2001.
The girl, a mannequin who had begun relationship Masterson in 1996, shortly earlier than he gained fame as a star of the sitcom That ’70s Show, stated there had been earlier cases when she woke within the night time to search out Masterson on prime of her, and had accepted intercourse with him to keep away from angering him.
On this night time, nonetheless, she stated she clearly didn’t consent, and resisted.
“I told him, ‘No, I don’t want to have sex.’ He didn’t listen to me,” stated the girl, the primary to take the stand within the Los Angeles courtroom at Masterson’s retrial on three counts of rape.
She spoke extra shortly and grew extra emotional because the story continued. “So, I continued pleading with him, like, ‘please get off of me, no.’ And he was continuing. And it was painful. And I remember trying to push his chest up off of me. I couldn’t get him off of me.”
She stated Masterson pinned her arms above her head to maintain her down. As she struggled, she recalled Masterson’s clearly established “rules” that nobody contact his hair or his face, which she had beforehand heeded.
“If I did this, I knew it wouldn’t be good. But I believed it would maybe make him stop,” she stated.
She stated she managed to free one arm and yanked his hair behind his head. She stated he then hit her within the jaw with {a partially} closed fist, spat on her, and stormed off.
Masterson, who’s charged with raping three ladies from 2001 to 2003, is being tried once more after the jury at his first trial was deadlocked on all three counts. He has pleaded not responsible, and his attorneys have denied all the allegations within the trial, saying the ladies’s accounts are filled with inconsistencies and never credible.
Masterson, 47, might get 45 years in jail if convicted of all three counts.
The Associated Press doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused.
Masterson’s former girlfriend stated Tuesday that the rape was an particularly darkish second in a sequence of ugly incidents of their relationship.
She stated that after a contented first 12 months, he started looking for to manage her life and persona, usually invoking the ideas of the Church of Scientology. She had joined the church on the behest of Masterson, a lifelong member, when their relationship grew severe, reducing her off from her household in Alabama and from associates who weren’t members.
She testified that he grew more and more aggressive together with her sexually, and have become bodily violent, as soon as dragging her out of the bed room bare by her hair when she refused intercourse.
She additionally testified that a few month after the November rape, she and Masterson went to dinner at a restaurant they frequented close to their house. She stated she drank one or two glasses of wine with dinner, then had no reminiscence between getting as much as go away and waking alone and in ache in mattress properly into the subsequent day.
She stated when she sought to clarify the ache, Masterson admitted that he’d had intercourse together with her whereas she was unconscious.
“He started laughing at me,” she testified. “I asked him if I was unconscious the whole time, and he said ‘yeah.’”
Lead prosecutor Reinhold Mueller stated in his opening assertion Monday that Masterson had drugged her, as he had the opposite two accusers, although there could be no bodily proof from an investigation that didn’t start till about 15 years after the alleged assaults. Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo is permitting the prosecution to make the assertion on the second trial, whereas it was solely implied on the first.
Masterson’s lawyer, Philip Cohen, stated within the defence opening assertion Monday that these assertions are all of the prosecution has, and he informed jurors, “There is no drugging charge in this case.”
Masterson just isn’t charged with raping the girl on the night time she believes she was drugged. Prosecutors didn’t share their reasoning in leaving it out, however with out her capability to recount the second and missing forensic checks for medicine, it might have been tough to show inside the regulation.
But the night time lastly drove her to report him to her ethics officer on the Church of Scientology. She testified that she was informed what Masterson had executed to her was not rape, that it was not attainable given the standing of their relationship. She stated she was additionally informed that it violated church coverage for her to go to police and report a fellow Scientologist like Masterson.
The church, in an announcement launched after related testimony on the first trial, vehemently denied having such a coverage. The girl went to police in 2016, lengthy after she had left the Church.
She returns to the stand for extra questioning Wednesday on the trial that’s anticipated to final 4 weeks.
The trial, which started with jury choice final week, has garnered extra consideration on-line partially due to actor Leah Remini‘s outspoken commentary on the trial.
Remini, who left the Church of Scientology in 2013, said she was present in court during the opening statements on Monday.
She claimed Masterson’s attorneys tried to have her thrown out of the courtroom over incorrect assumptions she could be known as as a witness to the trial.
“I attended to show my support for the women who were not only brutally raped by Danny but then subjected to years of harassment by Scientology,” Remini, 52, wrote.
She went on to assert the Church and its chief David Miscavige are attempting to “waste the court’s time with embarrassing, petty attempts to get someone who is supporting survivors of sexual violence thrown out.”
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If you or somebody you recognize is experiencing abuse or is concerned in an abusive state of affairs, please go to the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime for assist. They are additionally reachable toll-free at 1-877-232-2610.
— With recordsdata from Global News’ Sarah Do Couto
