During the first Danny Masterson trial, Leah Remini joined us on the Underground Bunker podcast for a really terrific look at the case. And one of the things we talked about was how frustrated we were that the jury was not seeing some of the evidence we knew existed about Masterson.
In particular, we were referring to documents associated with Jane Doe 1’s mother, who had written directly to Scientology leader David Miscavige about how the church was handling her daughter’s situation.
In 2019, Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast wrote a great story about this material, and ever since then we’ve wanted to get a look at those documents.
Yesterday, Leah Remini helped us all out, posting on her Substack a letter that Jane Doe 1’s mother wrote to Miscavige in 2004.
We hope you got a chance to look it over, and realized how stunning this evidence was that Masterson himself had, according to the letter, admitted to many of the elements of the April 2003 attack in interrogations at the Celebrity Centre.
Unfortunately, as Leah points out, Jane Doe 1’s mother is not cooperating with the prosecution, and because the DA could not put her on the stand, they couldn’t use her to authenticate letters like this one, and so they have not been able to show it to the jury.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we asked one of the prosecutors if they would be able to get the mother’s documents into evidence even though she was siding with Scientology.
“How? Tell us, how can we do it?” they said in response.
We just wanted to add that detail, so you know that the prosecutors are well aware of how important this material is, but they didn’t have a way of getting it into the case.
We only hope that some of the other agencies looking at this matter examine that letter Leah posted very carefully, and consider how the rights of victims like Jane Doe 1 are being smothered by Scientology and its totalitarian ways.
As for the Masterson retrial, yesterday we learned that the jury has asked to rewatch a video, and it will be played in open court at 9 am. We suspect that it is one of two segments (or both) from a January 2017 interview of Jane Doe 3 by Detective Esther Reyes (now Myape) in Austin.
We just wanted to share with you a couple of reactions we saw to this news.
First, a reporter friend of ours who knows this case very well pointed out that one of the contentions by the prosecution is that Det. Reyes appears to put words in Jane Doe 3’s mouth during the interview, pushing certain interpretations of events that Jane Doe 3 was not saying herself. Could this be what the jury wants to confirm?
For example, the defense has made much of the idea that in the 2017 interview, Masterson is portrayed as “trying” to have sex with her in a 2001 encounter, which is not the same as penetrating her. But even though the defense continued to put this on Jane Doe 3 in its cross-examination of her, it’s clear that it’s Reyes who says “trying to have sex,” and Jane Doe 3 merely mutters “uh-huh.”
Another interesting reaction came from our friend TX Lawyer in yesterday’s comments…
That they want to see the JD3 interview video is a likely indication that they’ve finished with JD1 and JD2.
My best guess: Cohen said in closing that there was no penetration during the charged November 2001 incident, so they want to see if JD3 reported penetration when she originally reported the incident.
Doesn’t look good for Danny. If they had already acquitted him on Counts 1 and 2, I doubt they’d want to look at the video relating to Count 3.
Could this be the case, and we’re actually close to verdicts after the jury rewatches this video? We don’t know, of course.
But we’ll be in the courtroom as usual, waiting for the sound of three buzzes. Watch your inboxes for our reports!
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Thank you for reading today’s story here at Substack. For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
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Considering the power of Scientology’s brainwashing abilities coupled with the bullying and threatening tactics of the organization’s fair game threats from The Office Of Special Affairs, it’s not surprising that Jane Doe 1’s mother won’t support her daughter.
When I was in I was a coward just like Jane Doe 1’s mother. Fear is the cults main control factor. My cowardice manifested as directly observing abuse, crimes and injustice and not speaking out. This fear was cultivated after being beaten down by church officials when I did. Every totalitarian regime throughout history uses fear to control their people. No different for Scn. I hope our Justice system prevails. It’s time Hubbard’s organization is exposed for its rampant abuses, crimes and manipulations.
Why not go after Masterson's PC folders?? Because such a fight would take years in the courts. The CO$ would go to the Supreme Court again and try to block any subpoena. That is really too bad, that info would put the CO$ in 'Catholic Church' territory.