Actor Danny Masterson drugged then raped three women at his Hollywood-area home between 2001 and 2003, a prosecutor told jurors Monday in his opening statement in the retrial of the star of “That ‘70s Show.”
Direct discussion of drugging was missing from the first trial – which ended in a mistrial when a jury deadlocked on all three counts – with Mueller instead having to imply it through the testimony of the women, who said they were woozy, disoriented and at times unconscious on the nights they described the actor raping them.
Attorneys for both sides acknowledged that there is no forensic evidence of any substances Masterson may have given the women because the police investigation that led to the two trials did not begin until about 15 years after the events. Cohen was not allowed to refer to testimony from the first trial – something Olmedo admonished him several times for doing – but he said he expected testimony this time would show that one of the women Masterson is charged with raping watched him make the allegedly drugged drink her gave her.
She would only mention thinking she had been drugged years later after the investigation began, Cohen said. Mueller also told jurors that the women did not immediately go to authorities because they were told not to by officials in the Church of Scientology, and they were told what happened to them was not rape.The church said in a statement after the women’s testimony in the first trial that it “has no policy prohibiting or discouraging members from reporting criminal conduct of Scientologists, or of anyone, to law enforcement.