Scientologists ‘Scrutinized for Negative Thoughts’

• The third accuser in Danny Masterson’s trial for criminal rape charges took the stand on Wednesday.
• In her testimony she described an assault she said happened in 2003 and the aftermath of the incident.
• She said that she “didn’t know how to process rape,” because of Scientology indoctrination.

A third accuser in actor Danny Masterson’s trial for criminal rape charges took the stand on Wednesday, describing a fearful night in 2003 and her emotional state in the aftermath.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office charged the “That ’70s Show” actor with three counts of rape in 2020 based on the accounts of three women, one of whom is Jane Doe 2 who testified on Wednesday.

The accusers, all former members of the Church of Scientology, alleged that Masterson, a lifelong member, assaulted them at the height of his sitcom fame.

Masterson and his legal team have denied the allegations, calling them “outrageous,” and he has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.

Though the church is not a defendant and not on trial, the accusations against Masterson are interwoven with what the witnesses said they experienced with the church after they attempted to report and process the alleged assaults.

Jane Does 1 and 3 previously took the stand, and during the third week of the trial, Jane Doe 2 began to tell her story under direct questioning from Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller. Similar to previous accounts and what experts told Insider, her testimony included descriptions of her interactions with Masterson as well as insight into the complex nature of the Church of Scientology.

In a statement to Insider, a representative for the church rejected all of Jane Doe 2’s testimony about Scientology, as well as previous witness testimony about the organization.

“There is no truth to the allegations about the Church. The District Attorney is shamefully centering his prosecution on the defendant’s religion. With regard to the Church, the DA has elicited answers from the Jane Does and had them state as fact allegations about the Church—which are categorically untrue,” spokesperson Karin Pouw said.

Scientology is not a party to the criminal trial, but it has been frequently referenced as Masterson is a current member, and the three accusers are former members.

Jane Doe 2 and Masterson met through Scientology ‘cliques’

Jane Doe 2 fanned herself at the start of her testimony and often spoke at a rapid pace but with a calm tone as she described what she said was a dark memory.

“We were in the same church together, there were different cliques, and we would all hang out and be at different gatherings,” she told the court, adding that she met Masterson around 1999. “I was put in church by my mom when I was 16 but didn’t start going to the Celebrity Centre until I was 17, 18.”

Jane Doe 2 told the court that her mother, formerly a Scientologist, “still believed quite a few of the tenets and doctrines, even though she didn’t like it anymore.” She described meeting Masterson through the church and eventually accepting an invitation to go out to drink with her friend Hilaria, Luke Watson, and Masterson.

“Danny was staring at me so intently, in such a laser-focused way, it was like boring a hole into my head,” Jane Doe 2 testified. “When I stopped drinking the water, all three of them were staring at me and they were just watching Danny watch me — it was a very intent, predatory stare.”

Jane Doe 2 testified that by the end of the night, Masterson plainly told her “give me your number” and texted her for days “demanding and commanding that I come over, right now.”

“‘Come over right now, you’re getting in my Jacuzzi, you’re getting in my pool, bring your bikini,'” Jane Doe 2 claimed Masterson texted her. She added that she was unsure about his tone, but trusted him because her friend Hilaria told her Masterson was interested in her romantically.

“If I set conditions, I can probably control the situation,” Jane Doe 2 said about her thoughts before going, adding that she later told Masterson no to intercourse at his house.

“I am not getting in your pool, jacuzzi, not putting on a bikini, not taking off my clothes — we can talk and have a glass of wine, and then I’m going home,” Jane Doe 2 testified that she told Masterson.

The third accuser testified that there was pressure leading up to the alleged assault

She said that when she arrived during a night between October and December 2003, he handed her a glass of wine and urged her to “drink it, drink it” early in the night, and later things started to feel “fuzzy.”

During her testimony, Jane Doe 2 claimed that after that moment “some moments are extremely vivid, and blank spots.”

She testified that Masterson told her, “get naked now, or I’ll get you naked,” and she said she remembered being half-clothed in Masterson’s Jacuzzi before he began kissing her heavily.

“I told him, ‘we cannot have sex Danny,’ I kept trying to manage it because I did not want to arouse violence — there has to be a point where it’s enough for him, I thought I could control it,” Jane Doe 2 testified.

She told the court as she felt “fuzzy,” and “heavy, losing faculties,” that Masterson then told her to go to his shower and she obliged.

There, she alleged, Masterson fingered and penetrated her against her will, and raped her again on his bed.

“He said ‘That’s it,’ and flipped me over, and he started pounding me from behind really hard. I started to vomit in my mouth. And I was just swallowing back vomit because I didn’t want to get it on his sheets, he was pounding really hard like a jackhammer, it really hurt,” Jane Doe 2 told the court, claiming that the assault continued through the night and that she felt like a “ragdoll.”

She said that she didn’t know how to process what happened because of Scientology’s doctrines, testifying that she didn’t have the tools to process

“I didn’t want it to be rape, we were in the same church,” Jane Doe 2 said. “I did not want to think of someone in church as a rapist. We were very profoundly scrutinized for negative thoughts about others, meaning that we sinned about them.”

In her testimony, Jane Doe 2 said that Masterson’s elevated status in the church scared her.

“I did not know how to process a rape, I didn’t have the mental landscape available to me to understand what was happening, also because in the church he was considered more important than me,” she said. “That would have made my life horrible, I knew that would sink my whole mental, emotional life, to process the shame. I did not have enough support in my life either to process something like that. I had to make it something else to survive it.”

During the questioning, she also highlighted what she said restricted her from talking to others about what happened.

“I wasn’t allowed to think of it that way because of the church, and it would have been incredibly stressful,” Jane Doe 2 testified. “I was gaslighting myself, I was really trying to re-contextualize it for myself to be safe in our church, to be safe with him.”

She never reported the alleged assault to the church, she testified, citing a previous negative experience. Not long before she alleged Masterson raped her, Jane Doe 2 said she was raped by another Scientology member. When she went to a church chaplain to discuss the assault, she said the chaplain scolded her and made it clear that she wasn’t allowed to report it to law enforcement.

Her past experiences with Scientology, she said, had convinced her that reporting Masterson would lead to her being excommunicated, declared a suppressive person, and the loss of her entire community.

A spokesperson for Scientology rejected much of Jane Doe 2’s testimony, saying “church policy explicitly demands Scientologists abide by all law of the land.”

Jane Doe 2 said that initially, she opened up to her mother and a few friends and that she did not have the support system to realize what had happened to her, but years later she understood.

“To me, it was rape, and he was a predator,” Jane Doe 2 said. “As an adult woman, you have plenty of time to see these distinctions, between someone having an affinity for you and someone targeting you like you’re a piece of meat.”