After an eventful week covering jury selection at the Danny Masterson retrial in Los Angeles, the main event gets underway with opening statements scheduled to begin this morning.
We’ll be in place to bring you our lengthy reports on what’s said in court at the breaks, and we’ll be curious to see how things might differ than the first trial.
Looking through our notes from the last time, this is how things went down that first day of testimony in the trial…
Deputy DA Reinhold Mueller went first, for the prosecution. He explained that this was a rare chance for him to lay out the case in a logical, chronological order, which he doesn't get to do with the testimony of individual witnesses.
He explained that there were three victims alleging that the had been forcibly raped by Masterson, and he showed pictures of them to the jury on a monitor. (The jury would hear partial names of these three women, but we stick to Jane Does 1 through 3.)
He then began telling each of the three womens' stories, including their backgrounds in Scientology and details about each of the assaults.
He said they'd hear from an expert who would explain how difficult it is to process something like being attacked by someone you know. Then he concluded by saying that the jury would hear that these women "did certain things and didn't do certain things because of their church, the Church of Scientology."
When Mueller finished, there were still about fifteen minutes before the lunch break, and defense attorney Philip Cohen said he didn't want to wait.
He then launched almost immediately into one of the main themes of the defense in the first trial: That the three women had supposedly compromised the case by continuing to speak with each other after the LAPD had told them not to.
After the lunch break, Cohen said that the information about Scientology was a red herring, and that what really mattered were what he claimed were inconsistencies in the testimony by the three women.
By the time Cohen was done, there was still time to bring on the first witness, Jane Doe 1, before the afternoon break. She then resumed direct testimony, and Cohen made his first call for a mistrial.
So that gives us perhaps some idea of how things will go today. Will Mueller change up the way he presents the three cases? Will Cohen still focus on what he claims is contamination, or will he now be forced to speak more about Scientology? And will it be Jane Doe 1 who is the first witness this time?
Our pool reporter duties are now done with the conclusion of jury selection. So now we’re on the scene for you, our readers at Substack. And we'll be sending out reports at the breaks, so keep an eye on your inboxes.
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
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Sending love and support to the Jane Does , know that there are thousands of people who are standing with you
Mueller knows what went wrong in the first trial. As long as he keeps knocking those 'inconsistencies' down he can get a conviction. Go, Go, Go Team Mueller!!! And may the victims finally get some justice.