“That '70s Show” star Danny Masterson was led out in handcuffs from a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday and could get 30 years to life in prison after a jury found him guilty on two of three counts of rape at his second trial, in which the Church of Scientology played a central role.
Masterson's wife, actor and model Bijou Phillips, gasped when the verdict was read and wept as he was taken into custody, while a group of family and friends who sat stone-faced behind him throughout both trials.
The jury of seven women and five men reached the verdict after deliberating for seven days spread over two weeks. They could not reach a verdict on the third count, that alleged Masterson raped a longtime girlfriend. They had voted 8-4 in favor of conviction.
Danny Masterson, right, and his wife Bijou Phillips arrive for closing arguments in his second trial, May 16, 2023, in Los Angeles.
“I am experiencing a complex array of emotions — relief, exhaustion, strength, sadness — knowing that my abuser, Danny Masterson, will face accountability for his criminal behavior,” one of the women
whom Masterson knew as a fellow member of the church and was convicted of raping at his home in 2003, said in a statement.
A second woman, a former girlfriend, whose count left the jury deadlocked, said in the statement: “While I’m encouraged that Danny Masterson will face some criminal punishment, I am devastated that he has dodged criminal accountability for his heinous conduct against me.”
After a deadlocked jury led to a mistrial in December, prosecutors retried Masterson, saying he forcibly raped three women in his Hollywood Hills home between 2001 and 2003.
They told jurors he drugged the women’s drinks so he could rape them. They said he used his prominence in the church — where all three women were also members at the time — to avoid consequences for decades.
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