‘That ‘70s Show’ Actor Danny Masterson Locked Up in Prison for 30 Years to Life for Raping Two Women
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00:00 Welcome everybody to Law and Crime Daily.
00:03 I'm Jesse Weber.
00:05 That '70s show star Danny Masterson learned his fate in a Southern California courtroom
00:09 Thursday after being convicted of raping two women 30 years to life in prison.
00:16 Masterson did not speak during the sentencing, but Masterson's two victims did, and a statement
00:21 from a third woman who made allegations against Masterson was also included.
00:25 Masterson was found guilty of two counts of rape back in May.
00:28 He was first tried last fall, but jurors couldn't come to an agreement about what happened in
00:33 the actor's Hollywood Hills home between 2001 and 2003.
00:37 Multiple victims claimed that Masterson drugged and raped them.
00:41 Prosecutors vowed to bring charges a second time, and a retrial got underway in the spring.
00:45 But this time around, the judge allowed the witnesses to say that they were drugged, despite
00:49 no forensic evidence of drugs being presented.
00:52 And the Church of Scientology featured more heavily in the retrial.
00:56 It took the jury seven days of deliberations to reach their decision.
01:01 Masterson's accusers are also suing him and the church in civil court.
01:05 During the sentencing, the judge had this to say, "Mr. Masterson, you are not the victim
01:09 here.
01:10 Your actions 20 years ago took away another person's choice and voice.
01:14 Your actions 20 years ago were criminal, and that is why you are here now."
01:20 Let me bring in my top-notch legal analyst, co-host, Terry Austin.
01:24 Brian Buckmeyer, good to see you here.
01:26 So I don't know who I want to start with first.
01:28 I'll start with you, Terry.
01:29 So you think about it.
01:30 The victim impact statements.
01:32 I wonder if that had an effect, because sometimes we go into it saying the judge already knows
01:36 what the sentence is going to be.
01:38 However, do you think the victim impact statements created an impact on them?
01:42 Well, I do think they had some impact.
01:44 I do believe this judge had already made up their minds.
01:48 I mean, here we have someone who got the book thrown at him.
01:52 30 years was the maximum.
01:55 So if you think about it, when you're going to write up a sentence and you're going to
01:59 say something, you've already planned that all out.
02:02 You know, it's written, you're reading it, and you've already thought about what you're
02:05 going to say.
02:06 One of the things here was that he did change the lives of these women and that there's
02:12 no remorse and that he's sitting there and he's thinking probably that the system has
02:16 done him wrong.
02:17 And it's also consecutive, right?
02:19 It is, yes.
02:20 Explain why that's a big...
02:22 I think the issue was it's different women, and so the judge wanted to make sure that
02:27 each of them has their ability to have some sort of consolation here that he is serving
02:33 time for their crime that was committed against them.
02:37 But I think to answer your question, the judge already knew, but because there was no remorse
02:42 and because he sat there thinking that he had every right to do what he did, the victim
02:46 impact statements made a difference.
02:48 Masterson didn't say anything.
02:50 Is that strategic?
02:51 I think so, because it's 30 years, but it's 30 years to life.
02:54 So after 30 years, he has a possibility to go to a parole board.
02:58 Taking ownership for what you've been convicted of is one of the factors a parole board really
03:01 think about, and that could have helped him got out when he's, what, 77 years old and
03:05 his nine-year-old daughter is then 39, probably something he wants to get out.
03:10 I think it might be strategic in the sense of the appeal.
03:13 When we saw that first trial, the majority of the jurors were going towards an acquittal,
03:17 and then facts like he pointed out about the ability to say that they were intoxicated,
03:20 even though there was no forensic to back it up, and even some of the other testimony
03:23 from uncharged witnesses came in.
03:25 I think that's a very elementary appeal, just in the sense that you could say, "Judge, no
03:30 conviction here."
03:31 Leaning towards innocence, conviction here, look at what changed.
03:34 We want an appeal.
03:35 This was wrong.
03:36 I think that's why he stayed silent.
03:37 Okay, so there might be developments down the line, but right now, what a major sentence
03:41 for Danny Masterson.
03:44 And welcome back to Long Crime Daily, everybody.
03:46 So the defense team for alleged killer Brian Koberger says that instead of cross-examining
03:50 a witness during a recent hearing, Idaho prosecutors sent the FBI to her house to do it for them.
03:57 Gabriella Vargas testified during a hearing about DNA testing and genetic genealogy last
04:02 month.
04:03 Koberger's attorneys say that only a few days later, FBI agents came to her door and interrogated
04:08 her about her testimony.
04:10 Prosecutor Bill Thompson said that investigators had heard, through some of Vargas' colleagues,
04:15 that she was going back on some of the things she testified to in court.
04:18 Evidently, Vargas may have signed a written declaration as to what she was testifying
04:22 to without fully reading it.
04:25 Police in Moscow, Idaho, say that Brian Koberger entered a rented home near the University
04:29 of Idaho last November and stabbed four college students to death.
04:32 Kaylee Gonzalez, Madison Mogens, Zahner Kernodle, Ethan Chapin, they all died from their wounds.
04:38 Now Koberger was a doctoral student nearby Washington State University.
04:43 Police collected trash from Koberger's parents' home in Pennsylvania where he was spending
04:46 Christmas break and used a DNA sample to link him to the sheath of a knife found in one
04:52 of the bedrooms.
04:53 Here's some of what Gabriella Vargas had to say about her involvement in the process during
04:57 that August hearing.
04:58 I was contacted by defense.
04:59 Well, I take that back.
05:00 I was contacted by somebody in this field.
05:01 I don't know if I can say who it was.
05:02 I don't know.
05:03 It was relevant.
05:14 Asking if I would be willing to talk to the defense.
05:20 And I agreed.
05:21 And I had that.
05:22 It was a Zoom call in which I was asked basically just to explain the process.
05:23 In which I go through from start to finish on a case.
05:39 So what is, you know, from when law enforcement contacts me to when I provide the investigative
05:45 lead back to law enforcement, what is the process?
05:49 And that was the extent of my involvement at the time.
05:56 In the end, what we provide to, what I provide to law enforcement is an investigative lead.
06:00 And it is up to the agency to then take over their case and confirm that my lead is in
06:11 fact correct.
06:12 So let's be clear, Terry.
06:13 The parties, they're allowed to speak to witnesses, right?
06:15 But what makes this a bit unusual?
06:17 You know, I actually went over the American Bar Association code to see what the parties
06:22 can do when they are investigating and interviewing witnesses.
06:26 And both sides can interview all of the witnesses that they know about, even if it's a witness
06:31 that will be called from the opposite team.
06:34 But here what's very different is the FBI win.
06:38 And that's a little odd.
06:39 I mean, the prosecution wanted to follow up.
06:42 That makes sense.
06:43 If there is a change in the genealogist's testimony, why not go and find out what exactly
06:48 is that change?
06:50 But usually you send one of the lawyers, one of the paralegals, one of the investigators.
06:56 You don't really send the FBI.
06:59 So I think that's what's unusual here.
07:01 I mean, you have investigators who do this for a living, who work for the prosecutorial
07:06 team or for the defense team.
07:08 It's just a little odd and it is intimidating to have the FBI come to her home.
07:13 And so I think there's a claim here on the defense side that, you know, she was intimidated,
07:19 that maybe she was trying to change her testimony and the FBI might have pushed her in that
07:23 direction.
07:24 Well, that's what I was going to ask you, Brian.
07:25 Does the defense have an argument to either the judge or the jury at a trial about the
07:30 way this witness was questioned by the FBI?
07:32 I don't think they have an argument with the judge because, to Terry's point, while we
07:37 may call them the prosecution's witness or the defense's witness because they testify
07:41 on their behalf, you don't actually own a witness.
07:44 I've actually done this in trials before.
07:46 Prosecutor says they're about to call someone on a witness list that I haven't spoken to
07:48 before because it's some family member who saw some random event at a party that they're
07:52 going to try to use against my client.
07:53 I'll slide right into that room when no one's in there and ask them a bunch of questions.
07:57 And if a prosecutor wants to come and knock on the door and say, "Hey, that's my witness,"
07:59 I'll say, "I don't see your name on this person.
08:02 I can ask whoever I want of any questions."
08:06 But just as we were all a little skeptical and it's a little bit unusual, we could present
08:09 it to the jury and say, "Isn't this a little weird?
08:14 Why would you do this?
08:15 What if you testified, you being the jury, testified one way about something and then
08:19 the FBI came to your door, how would you testify then?"
08:23 And I think that is a bit of a seed, even though you can't go all the way and say this
08:26 is jury tampering or witness tampering, but it's enough of a seed to raise a little bit
08:30 of doubt potential.
08:31 And real quick, they can ask that question in front of the jury about the FBI questioning
08:34 her.
08:35 Why not?
08:36 Well, that'll be interesting when we have a trial,
08:38 whenever that happens.