As the jury deliberates, there’s plenty it didn’t hear about Danny Masterson

During the first Danny Masterson trial, Leah Remini joined us on the Underground Bunker podcast for a really terrific look at the case. And one of the things we talked about was how frustrated we were that the jury was not seeing some of the evidence we knew existed about Masterson.

In particular, we were referring to documents associated with Jane Doe 1’s mother, who had written directly to Scientology leader David Miscavige about how the church was handling her daughter’s situation.

In 2019, Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast wrote a great story about this material, and ever since then we’ve wanted to get a look at those documents.

Yesterday, Leah Remini helped us all out, posting on her Substack a letter that Jane Doe 1’s mother wrote to Miscavige in 2004.

We hope you got a chance to look it over, and realized how stunning this evidence was that Masterson himself had, according to the letter, admitted to many of the elements of the April 2003 attack in interrogations at the Celebrity Centre.

Unfortunately, as Leah points out, Jane Doe 1’s mother is not cooperating with the prosecution, and because the DA could not put her on the stand, they couldn’t use her to authenticate letters like this one, and so they have not been able to show it to the jury.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we asked one of the prosecutors if they would be able to get the mother’s documents into evidence even though she was siding with Scientology.

“How? Tell us, how can we do it?” they said in response.

We just wanted to add that detail, so you know that the prosecutors are well aware of how important this material is, but they didn’t have a way of getting it into the case.

We only hope that some of the other agencies looking at this matter examine that letter Leah posted very carefully, and consider how the rights of victims like Jane Doe 1 are being smothered by Scientology and its totalitarian ways.

 
As for the Masterson retrial, yesterday we learned that the jury has asked to rewatch a video, and it will be played in open court at 9 am. We suspect that it is one of two segments (or both) from a January 2017 interview of Jane Doe 3 by Detective Esther Reyes (now Myape) in Austin.

We just wanted to share with you a couple of reactions we saw to this news.

First, a reporter friend of ours who knows this case very well pointed out that one of the contentions by the prosecution is that Det. Reyes appears to put words in Jane Doe 3’s mouth during the interview, pushing certain interpretations of events that Jane Doe 3 was not saying herself. Could this be what the jury wants to confirm?

For example, the defense has made much of the idea that in the 2017 interview, Masterson is portrayed as “trying” to have sex with her in a 2001 encounter, which is not the same as penetrating her. But even though the defense continued to put this on Jane Doe 3 in its cross-examination of her, it’s clear that it’s Reyes who says “trying to have sex,” and Jane Doe 3 merely mutters “uh-huh.”

Another interesting reaction came from our friend TX Lawyer in yesterday’s comments…

That they want to see the JD3 interview video is a likely indication that they’ve finished with JD1 and JD2.

My best guess: Cohen said in closing that there was no penetration during the charged November 2001 incident, so they want to see if JD3 reported penetration when she originally reported the incident.

Doesn’t look good for Danny. If they had already acquitted him on Counts 1 and 2, I doubt they’d want to look at the video relating to Count 3.

Could this be the case, and we’re actually close to verdicts after the jury rewatches this video? We don’t know, of course.

But we’ll be in the courtroom as usual, waiting for the sound of three buzzes. Watch your inboxes for our reports!

 
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Technology Cocktail

“The best things a person can do are to (1) get trained and (2) get cleared. Auditors will always be senior to clears. Always. That became very obvious in the 19th ACC. People who weren’t clear created clears.” — L. Ron Hubbard, 1958

 
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THE PROSECUTION OF DANNY MASTERSON

We first broke the news of the LAPD’s investigation of Scientology celebrity Danny Masterson on rape allegations in 2017, and we’ve been covering the story every step of the way since then. At this page we’ve collected our most important links as Danny faces a potential sentence of 45 years to life in prison. NOW WITH TRIAL INDEX.

 
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THE PODCAST: How many have you heard?

[1] Marc Headley [2] Claire Headley [3] Jeffrey Augustine [4] Bruce Hines [5] Sunny Pereira [6] Pete Griffiths [7] Geoff Levin [8] Patty Moher [9] Marc Headley [10] Jefferson Hawkins [11] Michelle ‘Emma’ Ryan [12] Paulette Cooper [13] Jesse Prince [14] Mark Bunker [15] Jon Atack [16] Mirriam Francis [17] Bruce Hines on MSH

— SPECIAL: The best TV show on Scientology you never got to see

[1] Phil Jones [2] Derek Bloch [3] Carol Nyburg [4] Katrina Reyes [5] Jamie DeWolf

— The first Danny Masterson trial and beyond

[18] Trial special with Chris Shelton [19] Trial week one [20] Marc Headley on the spy in the hallway [21] Trial week two [22] Trial week three [23] Trial week four [24] Leah Remini on LAPD Corruption [25] Mike Rinder 2022 Thanksgiving Special [26] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part One [27] Jane Doe 4 (Tricia Vessey), Part Two [28] Claire Headley on the trial [29] Tory Christman [30] Bruce Hines on spying [31] Karen de la Carriere [32] Ron Miscavige on Shelly Miscavige [33] Karen de la Carriere on the L’s [34] Mark Bunker on Miscavige hiding [35] Mark Plummer [36] Mark Ebner [37] Karen Pressley [38] Steve Cannane [39] Fredrick Brennan [40] Clarissa Adams [41] Louise Shekter [42] John Sweeney

 
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Source Code

“We are the only science of mind that has ever come up the line and sat back on its haunches and proved itself across the board, we can also undo that. If we want to take enough trouble we can also save Gracey Zilch. One auditor sits on her head and the other straps the cans to her feet and a third, as she’s being held down, locates what she has been doing on an E-Meter, you see something like a Joburg or something like this, you see, and actually gets the thing taped out and then finally says, ‘Well, Gracey, we’ve got the goods on you. And now why don’t you go off someplace and realize that if you don’t do something decent about this, you’re sunk.’ And I don’t care it might take two hours, two years or two lifetimes; sooner or later she’s going to come in and tell all. Fascinating, huh? We can undo it. So, in a little, tiny, microscopic way, not accepting a half a million dollars from the Communist Party of America to do in a Central Organization; that of course killed a man. I bet you right now he’s tagging around in a schoolroom someplace or another, wondering what is wrong with him and why he feels so spinny. Fellow by the name of Don Purcell. He died. He did this, and for three years he just went on a toboggan and died. One of the reasons was is nobody was interested enough to even try to do anything for him. And the other thing was he had made it impossible to arrive at that data earlier by causing such a tremendous disturbance that he slowed up research.” — L. Ron Hubbard, May 19, 1961

 
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Avast, Ye Mateys

“The technical material I developed from ’68 to ’71 on Flag is published here, trained on here and applied here. We have the best auditors in the world. They are very few. While the Flag Ship Org keeps a ship here, keeps ports here and services those abroad, so that these activities can take place. The Flag Bureaux pushes the Administrative planning and programming which forms up the Continental Liaison Offices which hold the orgs there for FEBCs to return to. Everyone on Flag contributes to these successes, no matter what his post is. We are all operating directly on the VFP of a Cleared Planet. Sometimes this may not be as visible as it might be to someone with his head down into some routine job. But you can measure the success of what you’re doing. Look at the sky-rocketing rise of stats over the world. That’s my stat and Yours. It is in Power.” — The Commodore, May 19, 1971

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Overheard in the FreeZone

“Running anything other than composite case after Clear — utilizing New Era Scientology processing and NOT (NOTS) — which only leads one to endlessly run circuits and entities without a subjective reality on actual case factors. Doing so has been shown to be almost fatal at times to one’s health and sanity — and the probable reason why so many have passed away from cancer after having run NOTS.”

 
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Past is Prologue

1999: Web book store amazon.com this week removed Jon Atack’s book A Piece of Blue Sky from its offerings. Amazon later announced that it would reverse the decision, but the book is still missing from Amazon, despite continued availability on other bookstore sites. From Wired News: “Amazon.com has removed a controversial book from its listings, a book well known for angering the Church of Scientology. A Piece of Blue Sky, by UK writer Jon Atack, is an expose of the Scientology movement from its creation in 1959 until the death of founder L. Ron Hubbard in 1986. The book disappeared from Amazon’s site only recently. Amazon spokeswoman Lizzie Allen would only say that ‘under certain circumstances, for legal reasons, we need to stop selling a book. I really just can’t comment any further.’ Officials at the Church of Scientology said they have had nothing to do with the removal of the book from Amazon’s site. One woman told Wired News that the book was illegal to sell in the United Kingdom, and that was why Amazon had removed the book. ‘It was declared defamatory because it contained false statements,’ said church spokeswoman Linda Peters. ‘Amazon didn’t know about it. We don’t really know who alerted them. There are a lot of Scientologists around the planet.’ Peters said the ruling took place ‘four or five years ago.’ Amazon’s Allen said she was surprised that the church would speak for Amazon, but she still couldn’t say what had prompted the bookseller to remove the book. But the ‘legal reasons’ can’t be very far-reaching, since both barnesandnoble.com and Books.com still offer it for sale. ‘We haven’t been contacted by anyone to remove this book,’ said Lisa Lanspery, manager of external communications for barnesandnoble.com. ‘It’s on our site and it’s going to stay there.'”

 
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Random Howdy

“Thank god I didn’t have to go to confession. It would have taken a team of priests working in shifts to cover my multitude of sins.”

 
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Full Court Press: What we’re watching at the Underground Bunker

Criminal prosecutions:

Civil litigation:
— Baxter, Baxter, and Paris v. Scientology, alleging labor trafficking: Complaint filed April 28 in Tampa federal court, Scientology moving to compel arbitration. Plaintiffs filed amended complaint on August 2. Hearing November 17 to argue the arbitration motions, awaiting ruling.
— Valerie Haney v. Scientology: Forced to ‘religious arbitration.’ Selection of arbitrators underway. Next court hearing: March 15, 2023.
— Chrissie Bixler et al. v. Scientology and Danny Masterson: Appellate court removes requirement of arbitration on January 19, case remanded back to Superior Court. Stay in place at least through February 7.
— Author Steve Cannane defamation trial: New trial ordered after appeals court overturned prior ruling.
— Chiropractors Steve Peyroux and Brent Detelich, stem cell fraud: Lawsuit filed by the FTC and state of Georgia in August, now in discovery phase.

 
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SCIENTOLOGY: FAIR GAME

After the success of their double-Emmy-winning, three-season A&E series ‘Scientology and the Aftermath,’ Leah Remini and Mike Rinder continue the conversation on their podcast, ‘Scientology: Fair Game.’ We’ve created a landing page where you can hear all of the episodes so far.

LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH

An episode-by-episode guide to Leah Remini’s three-season, double-Emmy winning series that changed everything for Scientology watching. Originally aired from 2016 to 2019 on the A&E network, and now on Netflix.

SCIENTOLOGY’S CELEBRITIES, from A to Z

Find your favorite Hubbardite celeb at this index page — or suggest someone to add to the list!

 
Other links: SCIENTOLOGY BLACK OPS: Tom Cruise and dirty tricks. Scientology’s Ideal Orgs, from one end of the planet to the other. Scientology’s sneaky front groups, spreading the good news about L. Ron Hubbard while pretending to benefit society. Scientology Lit: Books reviewed or excerpted in a weekly series. How many have you read?

 
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THE WHOLE TRACK

[ONE year ago] Endorsed by the Oregonian, Scientology school is full steam ahead with its real purpose
[TWO years ago] Day two of the Danny Masterson prelim: Jane Doe 1’s cross-examination continues
[THREE years ago] Mark Bunker wants to get the FBI looking at Scientology in Clearwater
[FOUR years ago] Free of measles, Scientology’s cruise ship gets back to separating OTs from their money
[FIVE years ago] When Scientology leader David Miscavige targets you for a beatdown: A Jefferson Hawkins classic
[SIX years ago] Elisabeth Moss in this week’s ‘Handmaid’ sure sounded like FBI testimony about Scientology
[SEVEN years ago] Here are the instructions Scientologists are getting for the May 28 media center opening!
[EIGHT years ago] Leah Remini helps us celebrate our book in Los Angeles with a gang of Scientology ‘SPs’
[NINE years ago] Scientology’s drug rehab network sued for conspiring to misuse counseling credentials
[TEN years ago] How Not to Protest Scientology

 
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 19, 2023 at 07:00

E-mail tips to tonyo94 AT gmail DOT com or follow us on Twitter. We also post updates at our Facebook author page. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.

Our new book with Paulette Cooper, Battlefield Scientology: Exposing L. Ron Hubbard’s dangerous ‘religion’ is now on sale at Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. Our book about Paulette, The Unbreakable Miss Lovely: How the Church of Scientology tried to destroy Paulette Cooper, is on sale at Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook versions. We’ve posted photographs of Paulette and scenes from her life at a separate location. Reader Sookie put together a complete index. More information can also be found at the book’s dedicated page.

The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2022 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Underground Bunker (2012-2022), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Other links: BLOGGING DIANETICS: Reading Scientology’s founding text cover to cover | UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists | GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice | SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts | Shelly Miscavige, 15 years gone | The Lisa McPherson story told in real time | The Cathriona White stories | The Leah Remini ‘Knowledge Reports’ | Hear audio of a Scientology excommunication | Scientology’s little day care of horrors | Whatever happened to Steve Fishman? | Felony charges for Scientology’s drug rehab scam | Why Scientology digs bomb-proof vaults in the desert | PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill | The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ

Watch our short videos that explain Scientology’s controversies in three minutes or less…

Check your whale level at our dedicated page for status updates, or join us at the Underground Bunker’s Facebook discussion group for more frivolity.

Our non-Scientology stories: Robert Burnham Jr., the man who inscribed the universe | Notorious alt-right inspiration Kevin MacDonald and his theories about Jewish DNA | The selling of the “Phoenix Lights” | Astronomer Harlow Shapley‘s FBI file | Sex, spies, and local TV news | Battling Babe-Hounds: Ross Jeffries v. R. Don Steele

 

Tony Ortega at The Daily Beast

 

Tony Ortega at Rolling Stone