Jane Doe 3’s cross-examination interrupted as the Danny Masterson trial takes a day off

[Defendant Danny Masterson and his wife Bijou Phillips]

We want to apologize for the tardiness of yesterday’s video wrap-up outside the courthouse. We had a devil of a time uploading the video, which was a little longer than usual and was exacerbated by some connection problems. We think we learned some lessons from it and will try to avoid a similar problem in the future.

This morning we’re making it available for everyone here on Substack and at YouTube.

The Danny Masterson trial is dark today, interrupting the cross-examination of Jane Doe 3, so we’re going to spend the day on our bicycle. But we did want to bring you up to date on a couple of other cases that we’ve been neglecting because of the trial.

First, the sentencing of Jay Spina’s brother Jeff is coming up this Friday, and we had a couple of notes about it.

You remember Jay and Jeff Spina, they’re the Middletown, New York chiropractors and Scientology donors who are accused by the government of running a sophisticated scam involving fake business ownerships in order to make off with about $80 million in Medicare funds. We attended Jay’s sentencing in April 2021, during which federal Judge Kenneth Karas said that what Jay was accused of made his “blood boil.”

You see, it wasn’t just about the theft (and both sides, before Jay’s sentencing, agreed to reduce the accusation against him to only about $9 million), but that Jay Spina was still trying to portray himself as a pillar of the Middletown community who had made some poor decisions. But the government had caught the Spina brothers using elaborate means to try to hide the fraud, and what really seemed to incense Judge Karas was that Jay had pushed the use of “facet injections” into the neck of patients by a practitioner who had learned how to do it by watching YouTube videos, and it had resulted in the death of a patient. When that woman’s son had tried to find out what happened, Jay had unleashed a Scientology-like retaliation campaign against him.

Judge Karas lowered the boom on Jay, sentencing him to nine years in prison. And initially, Jay was sent to some fairly scary federal prisons and not the one he had requested.

So, we have a couple of updates. First, Jay Spina has managed to get transferred to the prison he preferred, the Otisville, New York facility that is somewhat famous for being a cushy place for white-collar criminals. Here’s how the Chicago Tribune described it: “The camp does have its allure. About 115 inmates sleep in bunks lined up in barrack-style halls, instead of individual or two-man cells like in higher-security facilities. There are lockers to store personal belongings, washers and dryers for laundry, microwaves to heat up food and ice machines to keep cool. Alums include accountant Kenneth Starr, who was accused of bilking celebrities like Uma Thurman with bad investments, and former Cendant chairman Walter Forbes and ex-Connecticut Gov. John Rowland. New York Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff wanted to go to Otisville, but the Bureau of Prisons sent him to North Carolina instead.”

Meanwhile, the government is still trying to get some of that $9 million back from Jay Spina, and has filed for writs of garnishment against what they describe as investment income. The US Attorney’s office noted that of the $9 million, Jay has so far paid $150. Just recently, Judge Karas signed off on the writs.

And this Friday, Jay’s brother Jeff Spina will be sentenced, but the government is talking about him in very different terms. It filed a sentencing memo that spoke about all the cooperation that Jeff provided in the investigation, revealing that he was not only willing to provide information that might help the government prepare its case, but also that he was willing to testify at trial, and even against his own brother.

The government has taken that into account and is moving for a reduced sentence.

Jeff’s attorney asked for another delay, but Judge Karas denied it and the sentencing will occur this Friday.

In another case we’re watching, the bizarre shooting death of a man named Brian Statler that occurred in 2019 at the Inglewood Church of Scientology, trial is coming up on December 6 as the two Inglewood police officers who shot Statler are being sued by Statler’s ex-girlfriend Decery Capponi, a Scientologist, on behalf of their daughter, who is going by the initials S.C.D.P.

If you remember, we found out in previous documents filed in the case that it turned out Statler wasn’t armed and that he was never actually asked to leave the church. The two police officers will be probed in the trial about how they determined that Statler was truly a threat. They claimed that he had managed to get the firearm from one of the officers and the other had no choice but to shoot him, and the plaintiff’s attorney doesn’t believe it.

The two sides are jockeying for position now, filing motions about what may or may not be included at trial. They also submitted a joint witness list, which includes not only various law enforcement officials, but also employees at the Inglewood Org. And there was one small notation that we couldn’t help being interested in.

A witness is listed with this description: “Decedent obtained credit cards from the witness, and purchased the Bentley that decedent was driving on the day of the incident.”

Finally, some mention of the Bentley that Statler showed up in. Bought with credit cards by Statler that he didn’t own? Stranger and stranger.

Well anyway, we’ll keep an eye on that one, but for now of course we have our hands full with the Danny Masterson trial. Here then is our video after yesterday’s session in court.

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