LOS ANGELES (AP) — In hours of often tearful testimony, a woman told a judge Tuesday that she was going in and out of consciousness on a night 18 years ago when she said she found actor Danny Masterson raping her.
“When I came to, he was on top of me and he was inside of me,” said the woman, identifying herself on the witness stand only as Jen B. “The first thing I recall is grabbing his hair to pull him off.”
The testimony came at a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court, where a judge is deciding whether there is probable cause to order a trial for the “That ’70s Show” actor, who is accused of the rapes of three women. The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were victims of sexual abuse but will sometimes use their names when they choose to come forward and identify themselves publicly.
ADVERTISEMENTMasterson has denied the charges, and his lawyer Thomas Mesereau said at a previous hearing that he “is absolutely not guilty and we’re going to prove it.”
Jen B. testified that she and Masterson were part of the same group of friends who were all tied to the Church of Scientology in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and that she had gone to Masterson’s house to pick up a set of keys on April 25, 2003, and got stuck there.
She said Masterson had given her a drink with vodka in it at her request, her first of the night, but said she was “blurry,” weak and queasy about 20 minutes later, and had no strength to resist as Masterson threw her in his jacuzzi.
She said when she got out she couldn’t even sit up. A mutual friend, Luke Watson, tried to help her.
“I couldn’t walk or stand, so he put me on the tile on the ground,” said Jen B., who began crying but remained composed throughout her testimony. “I said ’Luke I can’t see,′ and he said ‘open your eyes,’ and I didn’t know my eyes were closed. I couldn’t open my eyelids. I felt really really sick.”
She testified that Masterson carried her upstairs to the bathroom next to his bedroom, saying she needed to throw up. She said she vomited on her hair and he mocked and berated her for it, then put her in the shower.
She said she began losing consciousness but was awake to find Masterson soaping her bare breasts. She said she tried to punch him in the face but was too weak and only landed lightly on his chest.
She testified that he put her on the bed and raped her, and has only flashes of memory in the minutes that followed. She said that after she failed to get Masterson off her by pulling his hair, she put a pillow in his face, but he pushed it back on her.
She said he pulled a gun out of his nightstand drawer to threaten her.
During cross-examination, Mesereau challenged her over why the gun made no appearance in a police report she filed the following year.
“Do you think that the police just forgot to put it in?” Mesereau said. Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo forbade the question after a prosecution objection.
Mesereau’s cross-examination was to continue later Tuesday.
Jen B. testified that in the following days, bruises appeared on her wrists and neck area, and she had incredible pain in her anus and vagina, where it felt like she had been repeatedly stabbed.
She said that the leadership of the Church of Scientology, of which her parents and all her friends were members, strongly discouraged her from going to the police, pointing out that by policy she would be declared a “suppressive person” if she made a report against a member in good standing like Masterson.
“I would lose my family and everyone I knew,” she said, though in June 2004 she decided to go to the police anyway.
Mesereau said she had “mischaracterized” the Scientology response.
Before the hearing began, Mesereau argued that that references to the church or harassment of the women by officials and members should not be allowed. He alleged that the prosecution and lead detective in the case had shown “religious bias in the most blatant form.”
The judge declined to issue a blanket ban, but she said she would allow the witnesses to discuss the church as it affected their state of mind.
In a civil lawsuit that the women filed against the church and Masterson, the church denied ever engaging in any harassment.
Masterson, 45, sat in court and occasionally took notes and had no clear response to the testimony. He has been charged in a Los Angeles County court with three counts of rape by force or fear for alleged attacks that occurred in 2001 and 2003.
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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton