Former That ’70s Present actor Danny Masterson is blaming his trial lawyer for his 2023 rape convictions and accusing his defence staff of “failure of due diligence.”
Masterson, at present serving 30 years to life in jail for raping two ladies, filed a petition for habeas corpus — a authorized motion difficult the lawfulness of his imprisonment — on Monday, which blamed his trial lawyer, Philip Cohen, for failing to name any witnesses and for not pushing again on prosecutors’ claims about Scientology, Selection stories.
Masterson, 49, “implored (Cohen) to current no less than a minimal modicum of protection proof, however counsel refused,” based on the submitting.
“Cohen had a longstanding aversion to presenting affirmative protection proof within the circumstances he tried,” the submitting stated.
“He personally spoke to solely two of the greater than 20 potential witnesses who had been strongly really useful by co-counsel Karen Goldstein and investigator Lynda Larsen. He wrote off the nice majority of them with none private contact, however their manifestly exculpatory prior statements to the police and to investigators.”
Within the petition, Masterson additionally alleges police and prosecutors have been prejudiced towards Scientology, partially as a result of involvement of former Scientologist Leah Remini, who supported his accusers publicly.
“She was welcomed into the prosecution fold as an adviser, strategist, authoritative arbiter on the coverage and practices of the Church of Scientology, and advocate for the complaining witnesses,” stated the petition. “She was welcomed although the LAPD knew that she had an ongoing vendetta towards petitioner.”
The actor was discovered responsible of two of three counts of forcible rape throughout his retrial in Could 2023. He had pleaded not responsible to the fees towards him. The retrial was known as after 2022’s authentic trial on the identical three counts resulted in a mistrial when a jury deadlocked, failing to achieve unanimous verdicts.
Get every day Nationwide information
Get the day’s high information, political, financial, and present affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox as soon as a day.
Through the second trial, deputy district lawyer Reinhold Mueller and his staff tried to color Masterson as a serial rapist who had been protected by high-ranking officers within the Church of Scientology. (Masterson and his household are all members of the church.) They claimed Masterson, on separate events, put medication into the drinks of a longtime girlfriend and two different ladies he knew by the church earlier than he raped them.
The victims claimed Scientology officers threatened them for years after they reported Masterson’s abuse to police. The Church of Scientology has denied all accusations of wrongdoing and was not a celebration in Masterson’s trial.
On the retrial, prosecutors known as Claire Headley to the stand. She is an ex-Scientologist who testified that the church requires particular permission to go to authorities.
In keeping with the brand new submitting, the church’s legal professionals urged Cohen to name Hugh Whitt, a longtime Scientologist, to talk to the declare, however Cohen and his co-counsel didn’t name him.
“Why have we heard a lot about Scientology?” Cohen requested in his closing argument as an alternative of rebutting Headley’s declare. “Might or not it’s there’s issues in any other case with the federal government’s case?”
The petition argues that Cohen did not interview quite a few defence witnesses who may need helped Masterson’s case by difficult the credibility of his accusers.
“This failure of due diligence violated the well-settled precept of Sixth Modification case regulation that an lawyer should interview potential protection witnesses as a crucial basis for making a reasoned determination about trial technique,” the petition added.
“In sum, the jury noticed solely the tip of the iceberg of obtainable protection proof within the type of the complaining witnesses’ inconsistent statements whereas the wealth of instantly exculpatory proof went unused for no viable tactical purpose.”
Masterson’s appellate lawyer, Eric Multhaup, claims that the jury “heard solely half the story – the prosecution’s aspect.”
“The unfairness of the second Masterson trial was the results of prosecutorial misconduct, judicial bias and the failure of protection counsel to current exculpatory proof,” Multhaup stated in an announcement to the Los Angeles Occasions on Monday. “The habeas corpus petition is accompanied by 65 reveals that doc the proof of innocence that might have been introduced, however was not.
“Danny deserves a brand new trial the place the jury can hear his aspect as properly.”
Masterson’s legal professionals filed a separate enchantment final December, alleging that key witness testimonies morphed over time and “misguided judicial rulings” skewed the jury’s view of the proof towards him.
In an announcement posted to the Cliff Gardner regulation workplaces web site, the legal professionals stated there have been “two elementary flaws” in Masterson’s convictions, one being the aforementioned skewed view and the second a “gorgeous quantity” of alleged exculpatory proof “by no means introduced to the jury.”
His authorized staff went on to say that these are solely “one half” of their deliberate problem to his convictions, and they’re working in the direction of Masterson’s “full exoneration.”
— With information from The Related Press
© 2025 International Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
