2ND UPDATE: Jane Doe #1 on Wednesday afternoon testified that “everything hurt so bad” in the aftermath of an alleged second rape by Danny Masterson in April 2003, as she continued on the witness stand in Masterson’s rape trial in downtown Los Angeles.
The post-lunch session also revealed that Jane Doe #1, known also as Jen B, was paid $400,000 in installments after signing a non-disclosure agreement, effectively squelching a report she had made to the LAPD in 2004.
“I looked for blood,” she went on to say of the pain and discomfort she experienced on a flight to Florida with her family in the hours after the supposed sexual assault at Masterson’s Hollywood Hills home.
Delineating the physical ailments and bruises that were appearing on her body during that trip almost 20 years ago, then-Scientologist Jen B also testified that because of the family members who were not associated with the church, she put on an appearance of “smile, everything is always great” during the family sojourn following the alleged rape.
While on that family vacation in Clearwater, FL, Jen B said she did tell her non-Scientologist cousin Rachel of the incident with Masterson, begging Rachel not to tell anyone else — especially her own Scientologist parents. Starting to cry on the stand, Jen B recounted a “minute and a half” telephone conversation with Masterson during the trip where he told her “we had a good time” when she asked him what happened in his bedroom just days before.
In obvious disgust even now, Jen B says she hung up on Masterson.
Moving slowly through the sequence of events with the witness, Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney Reinhold Mueller displayed a number of photographs of Jen B on the courtroom video monitor. Many were of Jen B during the spring 2003 family vacation or around the same time. With one particular photo, Mueller asked Jen B to show the court and jury where the previously stated bruising was on her body; bruising that was hard to see from the rear of the room.
As objections began to volley from the defense table, the testimony shifted to Jen B coming back to California from the family trip and eventually her going to her Scientologist Ethics Officer to tell him what had happened. As laid out previously in the trial, Ethics Officer Julian Schwartz sought to cover up the event, in Jen B’s opinion, which is all she was allowed to testify to today. Expressing fears that she would be ostracized if she was declared a “suppressive person” for reporting the alleged rape outside Scientology circles, and lose her family, friends, livelihood and that her of her young daughter, the witness broke into tears once again as she testified.
As Jen B spoke and cried on the stand, Masterson, his lawyers and his family and friends present in the courtroom looked on almost expressionless.
Even with her misgivings about her status in the church, Jen B did go to the police, she said.
She went to the Hollywood LAPD station on June 6, 2004 to make a report. On that seemingly prolonged occasion, Jen B said she additionally handed over Scientology “reports” from herself and Masterson on the matter, as well as other related documents that she had acquired, as well as photographs.
As has been the case for most of today, Jen B seemed tentative over and over to talk too much about the supposed inner workings of Scientology. With a distinct figurative chill in the room, the defense threw up objection after objection over matters related to the church and its policies. Add to that, Judge Charlene Olmedo took testimony out of evidence on several occasions, and required ADA Mueller to reframe a number of his questions to be less centered on the church.
At one point, Jen B looked around the court ands said, “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say what he said to me” after being asked about a meeting with Schwartz after going to the LAPD. Told directly by Olmedo that she could tell the court what was said, she said Schwartz said “You’re f*cked, you know how f*cked you are?” after Jen B admitted that she had given the cops his name and number.
Amid the fallout Jen B experienced, she expected to be declared a “suppressive person” and shunned by Scientology. Instead, after a visit to her parents’ home by a church lawyer, she was told to go to attorney Marty Singer’s Beverly Hills office and sign some documents. After being told to sit in a Lavely & Singer conference room for two hours, Jen B said the church lawyer and Singer returned.
Following an outburst over being left hanging for two hours and up against a deadline to pick up the suppressive person declaration, Jen B said she signed an NDA that was on the conference room table. Prevented from even touching the documents, Jen B says she watched Singer turn the pages and show her where to put her name.
She did notice a name that she didn’t know, “David Dunkin,” which later was revealed to be a pseudonym for Masterson himself. Jen B also detailed how she was to be paid $400,000 in installments over a year for signing the NDA. (It has been long known that Jane Doe #1 was paid a six-figure sum, but this is the first time she herself has given an exact number in public.)
As the court entered its last break of the day, defense lawyer Phillip Cohen sought to convince the judge that Jen B mischaracterized what was in the NDA. Olmedo had little time for the protest and effectively shut it down, at least for now.
It is looking very doubtful that cross-examination of Jane Doe #1/Jen B will will even start Wednesday.
UPDATED with additional testimony from morning session: The second day of testimony in the Los Angeles rape trial of Danny Masterson heard evidence by Jane Doe #1 about an alleged second sexual assault by the ex-That ’70s Show star, with the judge at one point pausing testimony when she broke down on the stand.
Continuing testimony that began yesterday, Jane Doe #1/Jen B testified to the full downtown courtroom on Wednesday about an alleged violent rape against her by Masterson on April 25, 2003 following a birthday party in LA’s Silverlake neighborhood.
Jen B said she was at the actor’s Los Feliz home, where she says she had been previously assaulted by Masterson in 2002. Served a tumbler of a “really sweet, really fruity” alcoholic beverage by Masterson amidst a small party of friends and the likes of the actor’s publicist Jenni Weinman, the then 27-year-old Jen B talked about Masterson trying to toss her in his jacuzzi and feeling “woozy.”
Recounting this morning how she was partially dressed and drenched from being thrown in the jacuzzi, Jen B told the court that she said at the time, “I feel so sick, I feel so sick, I’m going to vomit everywhere.” Becoming emotional she told of Masterson picking her up and saying he was going to take her to a bathroom to put his fingers down her throat to throw up.
Earlier today, the witness said she was pleading “no, no,” and feeling “panic” as Masterson carried her up a flight of stairs in his house.
Breaking down in loud sobs on occasions later in the morning, Jen B chronicled for the court how Masterson mocked her in the bathroom for having “vomit all over your f*ckin’ hair,” and he “dragged” her into the nearby stand-up shower, the incident striking in its similarity to a previous alleged assault of Jen B by Masterson in 2002.
With an image of the shower in question up on the video monitor, Jen B recollected coming back into greater consciousness as the water pelted down on her. She also described Masterson groping her, pulling her hair, and the witness lashing out with punches to stop him as he said “grab the f*ckin’ soap.”
Stating that she only had “vivid” memories of what happened next as she was moved into Masterson’s master bedroom, Jen B acknowledged that her sense of a strict timeline is unclear.
“He was on top of me, his penis was inside of me …and that is what I awoke to,” the witness said between tears about the alleged second rape. Jen B outlined how she tried to “push him away” as Masterson continued to have sex with her, and “smothered” her. “I couldn’t breathe,” she said as a pillow was on her face. “I went unconscious.”
“When I came to, he was still on top of me, there was no pillow on top of me,” Jen B added, noting that Masterson’s face looked “so angry ..I’d never seen that.”
“He was going to kill me,” she said, breaking down on the stand with murmurs of “I can’t do this.”
The judge stopped the proceedings and called a five-minute break, sending the jury out of the courtroom. The only sound that could be heard besides shuffling feet were Jen B’s cries. Soon after the jury exited, the witness left the room as well. She returned several minutes later and walked back to the witness box.
“I don’t want to break down,” she said.
Reciting from memory after taking a moment to compose herself, Jen B then told the court: “He said ‘you like this.’ He said ‘you’re not going to tell f*ckin’ Lisa, you’re not going to tell f*ckin’ Paige.’”
As “some sort of chaos” happened over by the door of the bedroom and another man’s voice could be heard yelling, Jen B said that Masterson pulled out a gun and then put it back in a bedside drawer. Gesturing that she herself reached out with her left hand towards the same drawer, Jen B said Masterson slammed the drawer on her hand.
As Los Angeles deputy district attorney Reinhold Mueller and Jen B both spoke in a hurried fashion over the moments with the “black, metal” gun and Masterson, defense lawyer Philip Cohen demanded more clarity. The court reporter also asked the witness to let the prosecutor finish his questioning.
In the “incredibly intense” and “heighten moment,” Jen B said that Masterson told her to “shut the f*ck up!” as the noise at the bedroom door continued. “Don’t f*ckin’ move, you understand? Don’t f*ckin’ move!” Masterson supposedly screamed at Jen B, who said that she soon afterwards passed out.
The witness told the partially masked courtroom that after drifting in and out of consciousness, she then hid in a closet hoping Masterson wouldn’t find her. She said she eventually crawled out only to be scooped up by Masterson, put on the bed, and told to “go to sleep” next to him. Waking up the next morning and going downstairs in the house partially clothed, Jen B said she bumped into friend Luke Watson.
According to Jen B’s testimony, fellow Scientologist Watson said, “You’re not to say a word, you’re going straight to the president’s office now” before she could get many words out about what had happened. The president in question was Susan Watson, Luke’s mother, who handled celebrity matters out of Scientology’s Celebrity Centre mansion on Franklin Avenue. Jen B said that Luke Watson told her Masterson had already been there to see the president.
Worried about the flight she was supposed to take to Florida later that spring day for a pre-scheduled family trip to celebrate her father’s birthday, Jen B did not go to the Celebrity Centre. Instead, after getting her car and other belongings from the home of Masterson’s personal assistant, she went to her parents’ house, faced anger from family that she had missed a birthday BBQ, and soon headed to the airport for the trip.
With more questioning of Jen B from the D.A.’s office and cross-examination by the defense expected to take up most of the afternoon session, the trial Wednesday will pick up around 1:30 PM PT after a lunch break.
The fruity drinks and jacuzzi have come up several times in opening statements and previous testimony. As a near stone-faced Masterson looked on in court today, Jen B described being thrown in the jacuzzi by the actor with most of her clothes still on. There were two “other girls” and two male friends in and around the jacuzzi at the time, the witness noted.
“I felt like I shouldn’t be here,” Jen B said, just before the court adjurned for its morning break in the trial, in which Masterson is facing charges of three counts of forcible rape that allegedly occurred in 2001 and 2003 at his Hollywood Hills home. He was arrested in June 2020 and had been out on $3 million bail.
Masterson, who has denied having nonconsensual sex, faces a possible maximum sentence of 45 years to life in state prison if found guilty.
With her voice cracking, Jen B admitted early in today’s morning session that she was “terribly embarrassed, really ashamed” about what had happened with Masterson in the previous 2002 assault, which was detailed in yesterday’s testimony. Stating her reluctance to discuss what had occurred, she did reveal under questioning from Los Angeles deputy district attorney Reinhold Mueller that she eventually told a number of people including Lisa Presley about the assault. “No way, I can’t believe he did that,” Presley supposedly responded.
As the defense objected to the line of questioning, the witness went on to say that “reports were written” on her to Scientology officials and she was frozen out by many other members of her immediate church social circle. Asked by Mueller for more information on those reports, an increasingly hesitant Jen B turned to Judge Charlaine Olmedo to ask “am I allowed to answer?”
The role of Scientology and its practices has been a live wire in this case from the start and took up the bulk of Tuesday’s proceedings. With Masterson and all the alleged victims being present and former members of the church, the interactions of those involved have been partially weaved into the practices of the church – as was the subject of a prickly session in front of the judge today before the jury was brought in.
Struggling to describe the impact and “chaos” amid the self-described “tight-knit group” of younger Scientologists after Jen B told others about the alleged assault, she told the court that in fact, following a “moral correction” meeting with church Ethics Officer Julian Schwartz, she said she was “forced to make peace” with Masterson, “that we could be cool.” She went on to say she was “pressured” by the social dynamics of her Scientologist faith and “never be a victim” ethos to “bury the hatchet” with Masterson. Jen B also spoke of a phone call with Masterson, who was river-rafting at the time and asked her “so we’re good now?”
In a trial that is scheduled to run until around November 19, the day got off to a later start that usual today because one of the jurors was delayed in getting to court. However, once things kicked off around 9:30 a.m., everything was a direct pick-up from where the testimony ended Tuesday.
Not that everyone sat around twiddling their thumbs beforehand while waiting for the jury, as lawyers argued again before the judge about the presence of Scientology in the trial.
Although his latest request for a retrial was denied late Tuesday, defense attorney Phillip Cohen again took umbrage with Mueller’s opening statement and the early section of Jen B.’s testimony. Specifically, Cohen’s focus was on the introduction of Scientology policies and, specifically, the use of the word “enemy” by the witness in describing how the church supposedly views members fraternizing with non-Scientologists for any purpose other than bringing them into the fold.
Previous rulings by Olmedo limited the manner and context in which Scientology could be brought up, a fact Cohen leaned into hard this morning. In that, the lawyer brought up a number of media reports about Tuesday’s opening statements and further proceedings. Bluntly noting that the media reports may be talking a lot about Scientology, Olmedo said “perhaps that’s because both lawyers seem to be talking about nothing but Scientology.”
Initially clipped by Olmedo as he launched into a history of the case, Mueller cut to the chase and pointed out that Jen B had actually brought up in deposition testimony the consequences of reporting the assaults by Masterson to the church. In that previous testimony, the term “enemy” was mentioned twice by Jen B, and was framed in the context of her impressions of what did and what could happen to her.
As will likely be the case over the scope of this trial, and after rejecting yet another mistrial request made this morning, the judge reiterated her ruling of October 4 on the scope of Scientology’s presence in the trial. “The court will allow evidence and testimony on Scientology to explain the victim’s delay in reporting the incident to police,” Olmedo said earlier this month. As well, cautioning the DA to more specific in questioning go forward, the judge said, “the use of the word ‘enemy’ by itself is not prejudicial,” but inquiries must focus on matters related to the church that “makes sense to the victim’s state of mind.”
Further, the October 4 ruling permits introduction of Scientology into the trial as it pertains to the “victim’s belief” on the fallout of reporting crimes to authorities outside the church, “fear of being declared a suppressive person,” and any “fear of retaliation and harassment” victims may have.
While a 2004 settlement Jen B made with Masterson and its dollar amount can be brought up, “documents related will not be admitted.” Also, regarding the pending 2017 civil suit Jen B and other alleged victims made against Scientology and its leadership for claims of stalking and more as a result of going to the LAPD, the judge read from her ruling and said “the complaint can’t be admitted,” but the unsuccessful letter written to Scientology’s International Justice Chief by the victims seeking permission to contact the police can be.
“This is a rape case, go to the incidents,” the judge told all the lawyers. She later spoke directly to Jen B, as the court awaited the arrival of the tardy juror, and told her to keep her answers primed on the questions asked, and nothing more. “I understand,” said the witness.
The trial is expected to run until mid-November with a witness list that includes Lisa Marie Presley and Hollywood lawyer Marty Singer among others.
In many ways the Church of Scientology has been an unnamed co-defendant in the case even before jury selection began this week. The David Miscavige-led organization petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari to halt the accusers’ lawsuit, but earlier this month SCOTUS declined to hear the case.
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