Danny Masterson’s teen model girlfriend told investigators he would physically and verbally abuse her “all the time,” spitting in her face, pulling her hair and calling her “white trash” if she refused his daily demands for sex, a Los Angeles police detective testified Thursday.
Detective Esther Reyes, whose legal name is Esther Myape, took the stand Thursday in the criminal rape trial of Masterson, whose case she says she was assigned in 2016. The veteran detective told the jury she was the lead investigator in the cases of three women who had come forward separately – all of whom have already testified in the Los Angeles trial.
Myape had already been aware of one of those cases – filed by the Jane Doe witness known at trial as “JB.” But she became involved after Jane Doe witness known as “CB” – who had been Masterson’s girlfriend for six years starting in 1995 – filed her report with police in Austin, Texas, which was forwarded on to LAPD.
After that, Myape says she interviewed all three witnesses, including the third Jane Doe, known as “N Trout,” who finished her testimony Wednesday.
Prosecutors focused on Myape’s interview with CB, who says she was 17 when she first met Masterson at a party being thrown to celebrate her first big modeling job in L.A. Masterson was already a prominent Scientologist at that point, due mostly to his “That 70s Show” fame, and she said he flirted with her then. Several weeks later, they were dating and she moved in.
CB testified that Masterson forced her to have sex on many occasions, and once anally raped her while she was unconscious and unable to consent to an act she believed was wrong. But her grueling, multi-day testimony did not include many of the details of persistent physical, verbal and psychological abuse that Myape relayed on Thursday.
“She said he would demand sex every day and physically abuse and yell at her if she didn’t want to,” Myape testified. She said if she refused him, he would spit in her face, pull her hair, call her names – and then sometimes just force her to have sex anyway.
“She described that he would constantly want to have sex with her daily and would verbally abuse her if she said no … so she just gave in to avoid the abuse and the pulling of hair and spitting,” Myape said.
Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller asked if Myape recalled any specific things Masterson would say to her, or call her.
“Maybe,” Myape said.
“Does ‘white trash’ sound familiar?” the prosecutor asked.
“Yes,” Myape said.
Mueller then asked Myape to read from a transcript of CB telling Myape about a fight after coming back from a trip to Paris:
“She came home, she was tired, he wanted to have sex. She said no and indicated she was proud of herself. He ended up puling her hair, slapping her, pulling out of the room, verbally abusing her and she was spit on. Myape said she told her it was common for him to spit on her and that it would be somewhere on her face.”
She also read a transcript of the November 2001 incident – one of the incidents for which Masterson has been criminally charged:
“She told me that she and Danny Masterson went to dinner. She had couple of glasses of wine. She came home but she doesn’t remember what happened. All she remembers is she woke up, and went to the bathroom and her anus was bleeding and her whole body was in pain. She said to him ‘Did you have anal sex with me?’ and he laughed and said ‘Yeah I did.’”
Myape also testified that CB reported the incident to her “ethics officer” at the Church of Scientology, to which Masterson introduced her. CB said the officer told her that she had “pulled it in” – “which is a terminal in Scientology that means it was her fault,” Myape said.
Myape added that CB told her that “you cannot say anything derogatory or negative about anyone in Scientology, especially an upstat member, which is someone high or a celebrity … and if you did you’d be declared a suppressive person – and that meant you would be ‘fair game’ to other members of Scientology and they could harm you or sue you.”
The investigator was also asked how many times CB said Masterson got aggressive with her.
“All the time,” was her reply.
She added that CB told her Masterson would manipulate her with the silent treatment, sleeping in separate rooms, and would sometimes make her get on her hands and knees to apologize to him. CB also told her that sometimes the punishments and abuses included penetrative sex, the detective testified.
Myape said CB told her that she broke up with Masterson in 2002.
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 all wrongdoing, and the church has denied any involvement.
Testimony resumed Thursday afternoon with a pair of “outcry” witnesses for the Jane Doe accuser known as “N Trout,” who testified earlier this week that Masterson pursued her in 2003, starting with a “predatory” staring session while out with friends, which quickly escalated to him bullying her to come over to his house. Once there, she said, he forced her to drink a glass of wine, then relentlessly pressured her to do things she didn’t want while she drifted in and out of consciousness, an encounter that ended with a painful, “pounding” rape on his bed that began after she asked him not to have sex with her.
One of those witnesses was Jordan Ladd, daughter of the actress Cheryl Ladd and producer David Ladd, a “scream queen” actress who met N. Trout on the set of the 1999 film “Never Been Kissed.” The other was N Trout’s mother.
Ladd said she was N. Trout’s best friend at the time of the alleged assault, but that Masterson was “sort of an acquaintance” who ran in similar social circles. Asked about a certain “difficult conversation” she had in 2003, she said N. Trout was “physically shaking … highly emotional. Her breathing was labored and she was trembling in her speech” – an apt description of the witness’ time on the stand.
“She said she had sex with Danny Masterson and that she kept saying ‘No’ and ‘I don’t want to do this’ and ‘please stop’ over and over again. Ladd said he didn’t stop – so N. Trout just finally “gave up.”
“I was shocked. I felt helpless. At a loss for words,” Ladd said, adding that her friend told her emphatically not to tell anyone else. “She seemed afraid, confused. She adamantly shut me down and was terrified that I would say something to someone.”
Though their friendship fell out, Ladd said she texted N. Trout when she read about charges against Masterson. She said she also reached out to LAPD and spoke with the lead detective.
N. Trout’s mother, Joanne Berger, testified next. She said her daughter reported the attack “a day or two” later, and though she had trouble remembering much about the conversation, there were a few things that stuck out that she never forgot:
“She said that he was coming at her from behind … like a jackhammer and relentless and that it was very painful and that she told him to stop and he wouldn’t stop and that she threw up in her mouth. I was shocked,” she said, crying.
She said the two had never used the word “rape,” and was asked why.
“That’s because I had a fairly old-fashioned idea about rape. I thought it was someone who held a knife to your throat or a gun to your head. I realized that doesn’t necessarily construe rape and it’s about consent. There were no weapons involved and there was no extreme violence to her person. That’s why I didn’t question it.”
That concluded Thursday’s testimony. A new witness was expected Friday morning.