Danny Masterson Blames His Lawyer for Putting on a Poor Defense at Rape Trial
Danny Masterson accuses his trial lawyer of poor defense as he tries to overturn his rape conviction.
Masterson, the former star of That ’70s Show, is serving a 30-year sentence at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo after being convicted in 2023 on two rape charges.
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One habeas corpus petition Appellate attorneys filed Monday accused trial attorney Philip Cohen of failing to call any witnesses and pushing back on prosecutors’ allegations about Scientology.
Masterson “begged (Cohen) to produce at least minimal defense evidence, but the attorney refused,” according to the filing.
While Masterson was convicted of raping two women at his Hollywood Hills home in 2003, the jury deadlocked on a third rape charge. At an earlier trial in 2022, jurors agreed to all three charges but were leaning toward acquittal.
Scientology played a role in both trials, but was particularly prominent in the retrial. Prosecutors argued the women were deterred from reporting a high-profile member of the church. Two of them stated that they were threatened with excommunication if they went to the police.
At the retrial, prosecutors called Claire Headley, a former Scientologist who testified that the church needed special permission to go to authorities.
According to the habeas corpus, lawyers for the church urged Cohen to call longtime Scientologist Hugh Whitt to rebut the claim. Although Whitt was on the defense’s witness list, Cohen and his attorney chose not to call him.
Rather than strongly defending Masterson’s religion, Cohen’s strategy was to belittle him in both cases.
“Why have we heard so much about Scientology?” he asked in his closing argument. “Could there be other problems in the government’s case?”
The habeas corpus petition argues that Cohen generally avoided asserting an affirmative defense, instead relying on cross-examination of government witnesses to establish reasonable doubt.
This strategy almost worked in the first trial, with Masterson receiving several acquittal votes. However, at the retrial, the prosecution came with decisions based on more positive evidence and filed a more aggressive case.
The petition argues that Cohen did not change his strategy to account for this and did not interview multiple defense witnesses who might have undermined the accusers’ credibility.
“In sum, the jury saw only the tip of the iceberg in terms of available defense evidence in the form of inconsistent testimony from the complaining witnesses, whereas the wealth of direct exculpatory evidence
“It went unused without a valid tactical reason,” the petition says.
Masterson’s lawyers filed a separate appeal last December in which they challenged most of the judge’s rulings. The habeas petition allows them to address evidence that was not presented at trial.
“The jury heard only half the story, the prosecution’s side,” Masterson’s appellate attorney, Eric Multhaup, said in a statement. “Danny deserves a new trial where the jury can hear his side.”
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