American actor Danny Masterson, a prominent member of the Church of Scientology known for his role in the series “That ’70s Show”, was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison for two rapes by a court in Los Angeles.
The 47-year-old actor, who was found guilty in June, received the maximum sentence he faced.
During his trial, three women, also Scientologists, accused him of raping them at his Hollywood Hills home between 2001 and 2003.
The jurors agreed with two of them and did not reach the unanimity necessary to pronounce a verdict on the third. At the hearing, the prosecution considered that the actor had “drugged and raped” his victims.
This affair, triggered in 2017 in the wake of accusations against ex-producer Harvey Weinstein which caused the birth of the movement
Danny Masterson’s defense insisted that the plaintiffs’ story has evolved over the years and suggested that bias against Scientology may have motivated the trial.
At a previous trial in November, a different jury had refused to rule, unable to reach unanimity.
Danny Masterson became known in the late 1990s for his role in the series That ’70s Show alongside Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher. He also more recently appeared alongside the latter in the Netflix series “The Ranch,” but was dropped in 2017 after the Los Angeles Police Department confirmed they were investigating sexual assault accusations against him.
After the actor’s arrest in June 2020, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced that it had dropped two other sexual assault charges against him due to lack of evidence and because the facts were statute barred. .
