[Danny Masterson, right, and Ashton Kutcher, in The Ranch.]

Netflix was very quick to take action when allegations of sexual impropriety about one of its stars, Kevin Spacey, surfaced this weekend.

On Sunday, the Daily Beast reported that Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of touching him inappropriately when he was only 14 years old. At the time, in 1985, Rapp and Spacey were both performing in Broadway productions, and Spacey was 26.

Spacey responded by saying he had no recollection of the incident, but was horrified, and then used the occasion to come out as gay.

On Tuesday, Netflix announced that it was suspending production of the sixth and final season of the show Spacey stars in, House of Cards.

Two days. It took two days for Netflix to decide, after 32-year-old allegations of inappropriate behavior by Kevin Spacey surfaced, for the network to cancel production on Spacey’s show.


Earlier today, we sent an email to the Netflix media department asking for help with a question.

If Netflix took only two days to cancel Kevin Spacey’s show after uncharged allegations of sexual impropriety came up, why did Netflix this summer order a third season of The Ranch, some four months after its star, Scientology actor Danny Masterson, was revealed to be under investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department for violent rapes against three different women?

We will let you know if Netflix gets back to us.

On March 3, we broke the news that Masterson was accused of raping three women, all fellow Scientologists, between 2001 and 2003. Masterson, through his representatives, denied the charges. One of the women, who we’re referring to as Victim B, reported her 2003 rape to the LAPD in 2004, which later closed that case because they couldn’t find any other victims.

Victim A and Victim C never went to the police. But then last fall, Victim A learned for the first time that the other two women also alleged to have been raped by Masterson, and so for the first time she contacted law enforcement. She then contacted Leah Remini, whose A&E series, Scientology and the Aftermath, was about to debut at the end of November.

Remini encouraged the women to speak with the police, and she even met with the LAPD’s first detective handling the case, Esther Reyes, as the investigation was just getting underway.

“I met with the LAPD. I met with Detective Reyes, and I told her these victims deserve to be heard,” Leah Remini told us. “I pointed out to her that there was a framed picture of a Scientologist on their wall, actor Michael Peña. Do you know what that says to a young Scientologist who comes here to seek justice? My experience with the LAPD has not been good. I asked her to do the right thing by these girls, and I told her that the world is watching.”

Four months almost to the day after we broke the news of the investigation, on July 4 Netflix announced that it was ordering season three of The Ranch, which will be released in 2018. (The second half of its second season, already filmed, is scheduled to be released on December 15.)

The three victims accusing Masterson share some similarities, but there are also some differences in their allegations.

According to a police report, Victim A had lived with Masterson in a relationship, but he attacked her in 2001 when she was unconscious: “Victim and suspect lived together for 6 years, but were not married. Vict went to bed and when she woke up and was bleeding from her anus. Vict confronted the suspect, he laug[h]ed at her and told her he had sex with her in her anus.”

Victim B’s story also involved a woman who was unconscious at the time that her assault began. In her case, it was at a 2003 party at Masterson’s house during which she became incapacitated by a single drink in a suspiciously quick time frame. “SUSP (acquaintance) sexually assaulted the victim while she was passed out. The victim woke up while the suspect was having sex with her and struggled with him. The suspect choked the victim until she passed out,” the police report for Victim B says.

A close family friend to Victim B told us that the Church of Scientology assigned Victim B months of expensive conditioning, requiring her to look into her past lives to find the reason that she had been victimized in her current life.

We spoke directly to Victim C, who told us that she too felt suspiciously incapacitated after accepting a drink from Masterson at his house in 2003. She said that even in her drunken state, she distinctly remembers telling Masterson that she didn’t want to have sex as he handled her roughly.

“He flipped me over and just started pounding me. I was trying not to vomit. I said no like 50 times. But it was just sort of happening. I was saying no a lot, but it didn’t matter to him. I kept trying not to puke on his bed while he was doing it. It was pretty brutal. I said no 50 fucking times, but he wasn’t listening. And it was really horrible the way he was doing it,” she said.

In March we reported that Victim A had sent a letter to LAPD Chief Charlie Beck with specific complaints about how long it was taking for witnesses to be interviewed.

Eight months later, our understanding is that the LAPD replaced the original detective and the investigation did pick up speed, and that the case is now with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, waiting for a decision whether or not to file charges.

In the meantime Hollywood has been rocked by a series of allegations after producer Harvey Weinstein was accused by numerous actresses in stories that broke in the New York Times and The New Yorker last month. Since then, allegations have been leveled at directors James Toback and Brett Ratner, and actors Jeremy Piven and Dustin Hoffman, as well as magician David Blaine.

Rape allegations against Weinstein are reportedly being investigated by law enforcement.

But in the case of Masterson, our understanding is that the police work is finished. And we have to wonder, when will the DA’s office make up its mind?

Danny Masterson is mostly known for his part as Steven Hyde on That ’70s Show, which ran from 1998 to 2006, and for helping to get one of his costars, Laura Prepon, into Scientology. Masterson himself grew up in Scientology and was doing television commercials by a very young age.

Like most Scientology celebrities, he rarely talks about his involvement in the church, but then suddenly he talked about it rather openly in 2015 to Paper magazine. “I’ve never been given a hard time my entire life about my belief system or my philosophy in life. Literally never once in 38 years,” he said. “If people start like asking questions in a way where I feel like they have an ulterior motive, I’m just like, ‘Dude, just go buy a fucking book and read it and decide for your fucking self what it means’….I work, I have a family and I’m a spiritual being who likes to understand why things happen in the world and want to learn more so that I can have them not affect me adversely. So if that’s weird, then, well, you can go fuck yourself.”

While the LAPD’s investigation of Masterson was going on, news emerged that his wife, Bijou Phillips — the Almost Famous actress and daughter of musician John Phillips — needed a kidney transplant, which she received on April 7.

Bijou’s second film, 1999’s Black and White, was directed by James Toback. At the time, she was dating magician David Blaine.



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Posted by Tony Ortega on November 1, 2017 at 17:10

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The Best of the Underground Bunker, 1995-2016 Just starting out here? We’ve picked out the most important stories we’ve covered here at the Undergound Bunker (2012-2016), The Village Voice (2008-2012), New Times Los Angeles (1999-2002) and the Phoenix New Times (1995-1999)

Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…

BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of L.A. attorney and former church member Vance Woodward

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

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