Scientology granted delay in the Danny Masterson civil lawsuit

[Judge Upinder Kalra and Danny Masterson]

Wednesday Danny Masterson’s appellate attorneys posted to their website their appeal brief as they try to convince California’s 2nd Appellate District to overturn the That ‘70s Show actor’s 30-years-to-life prison sentence.

But even before Masterson was charged criminally in the case that sent him to prison, he and the Church of Scientology were sued civilly in August 2019 by his victims. And it’s been slow going ever since.

The three Jane Doe victims from the criminal case were joined by one of their husbands and a fourth victim when they sued Scientology and Masterson for harassment, saying that since they had come forward to the LAPD in 2016 with their criminal allegations, they had been subjected to a frightening campaign of stalking, intimidation, hacking, and even the killing of their pets.

The first setback they faced was Judge Steven Kleifield’s December 2020 ruling that because the Jane Does had been Scientologists at the time of the assaults and had signed contracts with the church, they had to take their grievances to Scientology’s internal “religious arbitration” and couldn’t sue. But that was overturned in a January 2022 ruling by the 2nd Appellate District, which reasoned that because the harassment the women were alleging was happening years after they had left Scientology, the contracts they may have signed earlier no longer applied.

By that time, however, Masterson had been charged criminally by the District Attorney (June 2020) and had been through a preliminary hearing (May 2021) and was about to begin his first criminal trial in April 2022. So although the appeals court had restored the civil lawsuit by overturning Kleifield’s ruling, it was then put on hold as Masterson went to trial.

Two trials later, Masterson was convicted and sentenced to prison last year, and the civil suit finally got going again.

Scientology then pounced, filing motions to strike and anti-SLAPP motions, attempting to gut the lawsuit by arguing that it was alleging harassment that the victims couldn’t prove. But the new judge in the case, Judge Upinder Kalra, denied those motions outright.

For their part, the Jane Does were ready to kick the lawsuit into a higher gear. With Masterson’s conviction under their belts, they sought to add sexual battery allegations to the suit, another victim as plaintiff (actress Tricia Vessey), and even civil racketeering allegations against Scientology. If Judge Kalra approved their proposed changes to the lawsuit, they wanted to prove that Scientology itself is a criminal enterprise.

Before Judge Kalra could make that determination, however, in May Scientology notified the court that it was appealing his denial of their anti-SLAPP motions. And Judge Kalra later ruled that as long as those motions were on appeal, the entire lawsuit had to remain on hold and he couldn’t yet decide whether to allow in the new proposed version of the complaint from the Jane Does.

And now Scientology has delayed things again, getting an extension from the 2nd Appellate District so they have a new deadline for submitting their appeal brief on March 14.

The Jane Does will just have to wait even longer before they can find out if they’re going to get the chance to turn their harassment lawsuit into a racketeering and sexual battery case.

Meanwhile, as we pointed out yesterday, Masterson’s criminal appellate lawyer Cliff Gardner posted his appeal brief a few days before the actual deadline (which was this coming Monday), but as Nancy Dillon at Rolling Stone explained yesterday, what Gardner posted at his website is much longer — at more than 50,000 words — than the 25,000 word limit for such a brief.

We can see on the appellate court docket this morning that Gardner has submitted an “application to file oversized brief,” and we’ll see what kind of leeway the court gives him. Gardner also indicated that another filing, from Masterson’s habeas attorney, is also coming, so we’ll keep an eye out for that as well.

---

Bonus items from our tipsters

You know you want to erase those engram chains, campers!

---

Want to help?

Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special material for subscribers. Or, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social

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 to 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.

Paid subscribers get access to a special podcast series…

Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news