Actor Danny Masterson, left, stands with his lawyers Thomas Mesereau, right, and Sharon Appelbaum during his arraignment in Los Angeles Superior Court in Los Angeles, Friday, Sept. 18, 2020. “That ’70s Show” actor Masterson was arraigned on three rape charges. (Lucy Nicholson/Pool Photo via AP)
Two former attorneys for twice-convicted rapist and “That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson were sanctioned by a court in Los Angeles on Wednesday for leaking sensitive information about his victims to the Church of Scientology – which is accused of stalking and harassing those same victims for years in a closely-related civil lawsuit.
Last week, Masterson was convicted on two counts of rape following his retrial on allegations he sexually assaulted three other members of the church in 2001 and 2003 at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Last year, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo declared a mistrial in the high-profile case after two slightly different juries failed to reach an accord on three separate charges of rape.
Criminal defense attorneys Thomas Mesereau and co-counsel Sharon Applebaum represented Masterson through May 2022 – but were taken off the case before it went to trial. Criminal charges were initially filed against their ex-client in June 2020 – several years after numerous women accused Masterson of rape.
A civil lawsuit had been filed in August 2019 against Masterson and the Church of Scientology, alleging a coordinated campaign of stalking and harassment related to their rape accusations.
Masterson is a practicing Scientologist. However, Olmedo made a conscious decision to keep the religion out of both criminal trials.
Before the first trial, Mesereau and Applebaum shared criminal discovery information – including police reports and addresses of alleged victims – to the church by way of its attorney Vicki Podberesky, Olmedo determined on Wednesday. Also shared with the controversial church are text messages and emails between the victims and LAPD investigators – and victims’ banking information.
According to The Los Angeles Times, LA County Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller voiced concerns on why defense attorneys would provide “these documents to the very people who defense counsel was fully aware had certain tactics these victims were worried about.”
In the attorneys’ defense, Meserau’s lawyer, Edith Matthai, reportedly argued there was never a formal protection order placed on any of the documents at issue, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“The court made a number of statements without question saying that it would not allow certain discovery and that discovery didn’t happen,” Matthai said. “What is being alleged as being shared is discovery that was allowed, and there was no order or statement that I’ve seen anywhere in any transcript that says that discovery cannot be shared for purposes of the civil actions.”
Judge Olmedo dismissed that line of argument outright.
The court said the defense’s position “flies in the face of both statutory and caselaw authority” and “thwarts [victim protection] law, legislative intent, governmental and privacy interests; and most importantly is contrary to this Court’s previous findings and orders.”
Olmedo lectured the defense that the court had previously “made numerous statements during contested discovery hearings repeatedly telling the defense that the criminal discovery process would not be used for discovery in civil cases.”
Providing those documents to the Church of Scientology, the court’s order says, violated “lawful court orders regarding the sharing of criminal discovery with a party to the related civil action.”
In the end, the attorneys were sanctioned $950 with payment to be made “jointly and severally,” the court’s order notes.
“[T]he Church of Scientology International is a party to the aforementioned related civil case and through its attorney Vicki Podberesky, possessed the criminal discovery related to the victims’ claims of stalking and harassment which is the subject of the civil case,” the order explains. “It appears that this possession of criminal discovery may assist in the civil defense preparation or litigation, despite the fact that such sharing of documents was in direct contravention to this court’s repeated orders and directives. Whatever the reason, the Church of Scientology International’s possession of these documents by and through its attorney Vicki Podberesky resulted from a violation of this court’s order.”
The church said they were caught off-guard by the ruling in comments to the LA Times.
“There is not a scintilla of evidence supporting the scandalous allegations that the Church harassed the accusers,” Scientology spokesperson Karin Pouw wrote in an email to the paper. “Every single instance of supposed harassment by the Church is FALSE, and has been debunked.”
The court noted that it was the church’s efforts to lodge complaints against law enforcement over the Masterson retrial that alerted authorities to the leaked discovery in the first place.
That information, the court noted, was used to allege that police were soliciting perjury to convict the actor. Those complaints, Olmedo wrote, were “demonstrably false.”