Yesterday, our daily sartorial splendor alert indicated that defense attorney Philip Cohen had stepped up his game at the Danny Masterson retrial.
We marveled at the metallic deep purple three-piece suit he wore to court, with the matching purple-rimmed porkpie hat. He even got catcalls as he walked into court in the morning.
We noticed some of our readers saying they had wished they could get a visual, so when we noticed that he had posed outside the courtroom with his co-counsel, Shawn Holley, we thought you’d want to see it.
We have seen a lot of really remarkable and colorful outfits from Cohen, but this one appeared to be brand new and took things up a notch. And he wore it, interestingly enough, on a day when he knew he was not going to be saying a word to the jury.
He had completed the defense’s closing argument the day before, and he knew that he and Holley would not be able to speak as Deputy DA Reinhold Mueller finished up the government’s final rebuttal yesterday.
You tell us, was Cohen saving his most outlandish outfit as some sort of statement for the jury on a day he couldn’t speak to them?
We’re not sure what he thinks his getups might do for the defense of his client, but on a day when we’re likely to be sitting around the courtroom with nothing to do, we thought we’d toss this question out to our commenters.
Today is the second day of deliberations for this jury. They got the case just before 10 am yesterday, and went the rest of the day without asking a question. (The previous jury, in the first trial held in October and November, did have a question for Judge Olmedo on its first day of deliberations.) Is it a good sign that the jury made nary a peep yesterday? We don’t know.
Given the number of charges they’re considering (three counts of forcible rape against three different women), it might take some time for this jury to go through the evidence they’ve heard over the last three weeks. So maybe it’s asking a lot to get a verdict today.
But we’ll be in the courtroom in case they buzz the bailiff and have a question or a request for readback. So check your inboxes and we’ll send you word as soon as we hear something.
Want to help?
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).
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.
Paid subscribers get access to two special podcast series every week…
Up the Bridge: A weekly journey through Scientology’s actual “technology”
Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars on the week’s news
Note Shawn Holley's body language in that photo...
Cohen's sartorial splendor is not on trial. Danny Masterson is. I bet the jury gets that. Now we wait and wait until a verdict is reached. The prosecution did a much better job this time and Cohen's Chewbacca defense went over like a lead balloon.
This is probably the best that any prosecution can do and if Rapey gets another hung jury, I do not expect a retrial. The Janes did excellent testimony and anyone who reads Tony's regurgitation of their testimony can't help but be moved by it.