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Did anyone follow this case and know how damning the evidence was?
From what I understand, the evidence itself wasn't so damning, it was his complete and total lack of a defense. There were no witnesses or testimony for the defense, and they seemed to rely solely on discrediting the prosecution, which they couldn't do. It was declared a mistrial the first time, and then retried when he was found guilty on 2 of the 3 charges. It should also be mentioned that it seems as though his lawyers were from the Church of Scientology and were more concerned with sussing out what the LAPD had on David and Shelly Miscavige than on actually defending Masterson, so much so in fact that they subpoena'd records unrelated to the case which the judge ultimately threw out. Masterson was found guilty, and I believe that is the correct verdict, but I also think he was set up by his overlords to be a sacrificial lamb so they could try to get information from the LAPD that would otherwise be confidential. He never stood a chance, but I'm kind of OK with that. Sic Semper Rapists.
Its probably also worth mentioning that his victims were also Scientologists, and therefore 'forbidden' from going to the police.
When they did, they were labelled 'fair game' and harrassed by the 'church'.
So there was also a Civil suit - filed before but put on hold until after the Criminal trial - that has The Church Of Scientology itself as a co-defendent
One of the things Masterson's lawyers were accused of doing was leaking discovery documents from the Criminal case to Scientology's attorneys in the Civil case
What evidence would there even be after 20 years? Unless there's text message records or something like that I would guess it mostly came down to their word vs his anyway, no?
That's exactly why it was so shocking to see him take such a harsh sentence. Typically in a case like this, the verdict is going to side with the defense because if it didn't, anyone could start throwing wild accusations with no evidence in hopes of a conviction. The fact that it was a twenty year old case with twenty year old evidence and the lawyers couldn't overcome that or even plea bargain him down to a lesser crime tells me that his lawyers weren't really looking out for his best interest, but wanted to get through the system as fast as possible to avoid too bright a spotlight on Scientology.
I'm not disagreeing with you but, if his lawyers were that bad, how has he not appealed based on ineffective representation?
He's a stooge to the Church. He is either a true believer, or the cult has even worse things on him.
Really interesting read, thanks for contributing.
Because that would mean disobeying the cult, I guess.
That sort of appeal has a close to 100% failure rate. How do you know he hasn't tried that and gotten nowhere? On top of that, he'd need to hire new lawyers, which is bound to be slow if he can even manage it.
Man I'm reading this whole thread trying to find out what he did and how they nailed him, yet I'm not finding any more info. Really surprising such an old case and he gets hammered this hard.
They had the testimony of three victims who gave detailed descriptions of the rapes. And he did not testify in his defense to refute their testimony. Typical rape cases are difficult to prosecute when it is the victim's word against the accused's. In this case, there were three women with very similar stories, and he was silent.
If Masterson was brainwashed by the Church of Scientology and they appointed a lawyer who turned him into their sacrificial lamb, one would think that he could plausibly play the victim card. If the government was interested in going after the bigwigs at the CoS, he might be able to get a good deal. Masterson is not particularly important in the grand scheme. A case against the CoS that would finally take down someone big, whether the head of the CoS or a big celebrity like Tom Cruise would be amazing. Even better would be to dismantle the whole rotten enterprise.
Really really interesting summary thanks for sharing
Im not sure what the evidence was, but there was a 3 year investigation, and two other cases were not brought to charge due to lack of evidence. The prosecution case involved the Scientology cover-up, including attempts to get one of the women to sign an NDA
The church had their lawyers represent him, then immediately ex communicated him after his loss. It does seem like they set him up to go down hard, even though he is indeed a rapist, his own lawyers fucked him. Good.
Wow that's crazy. Thanks, that trial always seems so weird to me and I never really understood what was going on, but I also didn't look enough into it to know anything after the fact.
Maximum security for rape?
Likely maximum security for being rich and famous and thus a high escape risk.
Also high risk of slipping on a bar of soap, or tripping on shoelaces etc.
Are they allowed to have shoe laces?
It says he'll be in level 4 general population. I found the California corrections department manual which says one pair of tennis shoes with "shoe laces white only" are allowed for level 4 gen pop, as well as SHU and psychiatric, but not allowed for intake or ad-seg.
Figure it has more to do with his celebrity status
That's the correct explanation. Michael Jace, former star on The Shield (who murdered his wife in 2014) is also serving his life sentence at Corcoran. They're both considered "high profile" inmates and Corcoran State Prison's Level IV housing and protective custody units are set up to handle these type of inmates whose fame and notoriety make it dangerous for them to be in gen pop.
Other notable inmates: Charles Manson, Rodney Alcala (The Dating Game Killer), and Sirhan Sirhan (assassinated RFK)
Michael Jace, former star on The Shield
Perhaps better known for his role in Murder, She Wrote: The Last Free Man - you can't make this shit up.
Based on interviews, it was determined that he [Jace] shot his wife out of envy.
Damn that's wild. Seems like it could be an interesting story.
Yeah “envy” is an odd word choice, I’m not sure why they went with that. As far as my understanding goes he was just a garden variety domestic abuser who escalated to the point of murdering his wife in a fit of rage. It’s not that interesting, just another senseless DV tragedy.
Oh. That's a lot less interesting than I thought.
People get jail cred for beating the shit out of celebs. Couple that with the fact that most sexual crimes get you beat up anyways.
Pretty violent rapes involving firearms
or maybe scientology would love to finish him off and he knows too much?