EXCLUSIVE: Danny Masterson’s attempt to delay trial over baseball gambit is DENIED

[Danny Masterson at the 2001 Hollywood All-Stars, photo by J. P. Aussenard]

On August 4 we broke the news that Danny Masterson’s attorney Shawn Holley was attempting to delay his rape trial from October 11 to late January by saying she was too busy with Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer’s arbitration in Washington DC.

That led to coverage in The Daily Beast and the Los Angeles Times when one of Masterson’s accusers, who goes by Jane Doe 1, put out a statement after our story came out, and her attorneys not only said that Masterson’s trial should not be delayed, but that they planned to be in court for the scheduled August 17 hearing that would consider Holley’s motion.

With the victim’s attorneys alerted, and the press watching, Holley apparently thought better of having the matter become a public spectacle on August 17. So she requested that it be considered sooner, and on Friday the two sides appeared in Judge Charlaine Olmedo’s courtroom.

And although Holley had claimed in her motion that Deputy DA Reinhold Mueller wasn’t against a delay, he had in fact filed an opposition to her motion on August 9.

We confirmed with the court that at the moved-up hearing on Friday morning, Judge Olmedo heard Holley’s argument for why the trial should be put back, and she denied it.

The court has set October 3 for pre-trial motions, and for a jury pool to report on October 11 so jury selection can commence.

Danny Masterson’s rape trial is definitely on, and Judge Olmedo is not budging on the date. The That ’70s Show actor and Scientology celebrity is facing charges that he forcibly raped three women, all Scientologists at the time, between 2001 and 2003. He’s been charged under California’s strict “One Strike” law, and if he’s convicted of all three rapes he faces 45 years to life in prison.

We first broke the news in March 2017 that the LAPD was investigating Masterson, and he was charged by the DA’s office in June 2020. Since then he has filed a myriad of motions and petitions in order to try and get the case derailed or delayed. On June 30 Judge Olmedo denied the last of his motions to dismiss, but then on July 26 and 28 Shawn Holley filed a letter and a motion asking for a continuance.

We published both of those documents, revealing that Holley was attempting to get the trial moved to late January because she was also representing Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer in the appeal of his two-year suspension by Major League Baseball. Bauer’s 324-game suspension, announced in April, is the longest since the MLB adopted its new domestic violence policy in 2015. The LA District Attorney’s Office declined to press criminal charges against Baeur last year based on the allegations of a San Diego woman who claimed that the pitcher had sexually assaulted her. But the MLB can suspend a player even if that player isn’t charged criminally, and the league talked to at least two additional women, both in Ohio, who also made allegations against Baeur. The pitcher appealed the suspension, resulting in the arbitration.

Jane Doe 1, in her statement after our initial story came out, asked Judge Olmedo not to allow Masterson to push things back further so a baseball player could first appeal a suspension. “I hope the Court sees that the matters in this trial, the rights of the victims, and the need for finality of this important matter, trump a scheduling conflict related to baseball,” she wrote.

Judge Olmedo agreed. And now Danny Masterson has less than two months to prepare for trial with his life on the line.

---

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:

Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain

Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org

And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning…

---

Now available: Bonus for our supporters

Episode 8 of the Underground Bunker podcast has been sent out to paid subscribers, and it’s a conversation with Patty Moher about her amazing career as a Scientology spy and then her years leaking great info about the church. Meanwhile, we’ve made episodes 1 through 7 available to everyone, with Geoff Levin on Scientology’s celebrities, Pete Griffiths on running a mission, Sunny Pereira dishing secrets of Scientology’s Hollywood Celebrity Centre, Bruce Hines on the crazy life in the Sea Org, Jeffrey Augustine on recent Scientology court cases, Claire Headley exposing Tom Cruise, and Marc Headley on what it must be like for David Miscavige living in Clearwater, Florida. Go here to get the episodes!