A fourth accuser was called to the stand in the criminal rape trial of Danny Masterson, and though the sexual attack she described Wednesday is not among the charges the “That ’70s Show” star is facing, her tale repeated several themes the jury has heard from previous Jane Doe witnesses: creepy staring, aggressive commands and mysteriously drifting in and out of consciousness while the actor committed “rough … pounding” rapes at his house, often while others were around.
Jane Doe 4 was not initially expected to testify, and the defense had argued against adding her testimony in support of Jane Doe 1 (“JB”), Jane Doe 2 (“NT”) and Jane Doe 3 (“CB”). But the judge disagreed, and the woman, soft-spoken and petite with long dark hair and pale skin, was sworn in Wednesday morning.
She said she met Masterson in 1996 when they were both working on a low-budget film, where she saw him daily. Asked by Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller whether anything “unusual” ever happened on set, she said: “The thing that stuck out to me is that sometimes he would kind of do a … hard stare.”
At that point Masterson, sitting diagonally opposite her at the defense table raised his eyebrows
as if he were incredulous. Jane Doe 2, the charging witness known at trial as “NT,” had testified earlier that Masterson gave her a “predatory stare” before bullying her into coming over to his house, where she said she was raped in 2003.
Jane Doe 4 described Masterson’s stare as “just like a harshness, and cold … it left me feeling intimidated … I remember being confused because it kind of seemed like we all got along, and it was often Justin Pierce another actor and Danny and I — three of us would hang out a lot.”
On wrap-party night they went to dinner at La Poubelle, and later to Masterson’s home in Laurel Canyon. She recalled at the restaurant where she admitted to having probably two alcoholic drinks that Masterson “was staring at me throughout the whole night. It was unsettling. It was very focused and hard to read … I kind of felt uncomfortable and it was just kind of a rattling, unnerving, hyper feeling to have someone cold stare at you in a very hard way.”
Back at Masterson’s, she said everyone was at the dining table hanging out, drinking, talking and smoking a marijuana blunt. She said she was “lightly drunk … having a good time. I recall everything. I was pretty conscious.”
At Masterson’s suggestion everyone agreed to crash at his place. She said she and Pierce, a friend whom she met on set with Masterson, decided to sleep in a bedroom at the end of the hall – he took the bed, she laid down on the floor fully clothed.
Asked how she felt at that time she said, “I felt drunk. I was tired, ready to go to sleep. I lay down and fell asleep.”
The next thing she recalled was waking up to “Danny trying to pull me up and out of the room and he was saying something [about] Justin ‘taking advantage’ of me. Danny was kind of appearing to be brotherly like he was looking out for me. He was saying things to the effect of ‘Come with me, Justin’s doing something, whatever,’ and I was like, ‘No, he’s not!’”
She testified that she “kicked him away with [my] foot and [was] pushing him off of me and saying that nothing was happening in the room, that Justin wasn’t doing anything to me and I just wanted to sleep and wanted to stay there.”
She said that both she and Justin were telling Masterson everything was fine but Masterson “wasn’t taking that. He was just demanding that I go and still pulling on me and insisting that I leave the room.”
Asked to describe Masterson’s tone she said it was “a very stern tone, very assured and kind of … I don’t want to say barking the order, but sort of … just a very demanding tone of voice.”
She said she really didn’t take it seriously in the moment. “I was sort of laughing and just went ‘What? What’s he talking about?’ But also I was drunk and also I didn’t think anything was going to transpire. I didn’t understand what the agenda was.”
Jane Doe 4 said as Masterson was trying to get her out of the room she blacked out and woke to him dragging her through the hallway, blacked out again and the next thing she remembered was waking up in a bed with Masterson on top of her penetrating her vagina with his penis.
She described the penetration, which she said she only remembered briefly before blacking out again as, “rough.” Asked to elaborate she said: “He was pounding. It’s what I felt. I could see him above me. I couldn’t see anything else. I couldn’t really move or say anything and then I blacked out.”
Jane Doe 2 had testified that Masterson was penetrating her “like a jack hammer” while she drifted in and out of consciousness.
Jane Doe 4 also testified to feeling disoriented, which she said she didn’t believe was from the alcohol or marijuana. Though none of the witnesses specifically said they were drugged, all three previous Jane Does said that they felt strange soon after consuming an alcoholic drink given them by Masterson, blacking out and regaining consciousness to find him having sex with them.
Asked what was going through her mind, she said, “I was just completely confused and honestly I don’t think I could have any coherent thoughts aside from confusion and not being able to really do anything about it.”
When she woke up again, she testified it was morning and she was completely naked.
“I was looking around the room … and Danny woke up and he was just smiling at me in a way that sort of was very confusing to me, as if you know, we had … .” At that moment Jane Doe 4 sighed, shook her head, looked down and started crying. “As if we were on a date or something sweet.”
Asked if she said anything when Masterson smiled at her she replied: “No. I completely shut down and just got dressed and left the room. I just didn’t know what to make of the situation. I didn’t like him and I didn’t think he even liked me.” Crying again, she said, “I didn’t know how to process it.”
Crying again, she testified, “I was upset [it] had happened but I didn’t know how to categorize it and I definitely felt a deep shame and disrespected. I thought I was hanging out with my castmates and maybe friends and I had a very different assessment of the situation … I was disturbed but I didn’t know how to cope with it. And I don’t think I could even think at that point. I just stopped being able to think about it.”
When she got home she said both her vagina and anus were sore and the insides of her thighs were bruised and tender. She also testified, “I felt my entire body was sort of in pain, like an incredible hangover, but extreme.”
She testified the first time she ever told anyone about what happened was in 2013, when she told Jane Doe 2. She had met her in 1998 or 1999 when a woman Jane Doe 4 had made a film with introduced her to Jane Doe 2.
Masterson was formally charged in 2020, but allegations first came to light in 2017 when a blogger covering Scientology reported that detectives were investigating the actor after three women came forward with accusations of rape and assault. The women claim they came into contact with Masterson in the early 2000s through the Church of Scientology, and each has said they were pressured by the Church to keep quiet.
Masterson has denied any wrongdoing, and Scientology has insisted that it had no hand in the matter.