The cult was super nasty to the always pliant tabloid.

Source: http://www.crazydaysandnights.net

Not only did the tabloid share with everyone, but also their internal discussions about the cult and one of the cult’s members were also accidentally shared with the cult. This weekly tabloid had an embarrassing situation this week when its communications with a cult about one of its members was shared with not only everyone who works at the tabloid, but also a huge group of the tabloid’s publicists.

The cult was super nasty to the always pliant tabloid.

Danny Masterson

Scientology

The Reporter Who Broke the Danny Masterson Story on What It Means for Scientology

“That ’70s Show” star Danny Masterson was booked on three counts of rape on Wednesday, the culmination of an investigation that lasted more than three years.

No one has covered the story more closely than Tony Ortega, the former editor of the Village Voice who has been writing about Scientology since 1995. Since 2012, Ortega has been posting about the church on his blog The Underground Bunker.

In an interview with Variety on Thursday morning, Ortega talked about how the case unfolded, the role of Scientology, and what a trial would mean for the church. Masterson has denied the allegations, and the church issued a response which is posted below.

You broke this story in the first place.

March 3, 2017. I broke the story that these initial three women were talking to the LAPD. They had actually come forward the previous fall. It had been going on for a while before I found out about it, and the incidents themselves are between 2001 and 2003. I call them Victim A, Victim B and Victim C. Victim A is Chrissie Carnell. Victim B, whose incident was April 2003, she did go to the LAPD against the wishes of the Church of Scientology in 2004. (Ed. note: This claim is lodged in a lawsuit filed last year.) Yashar Ali at the Huffington Post did a great story about how Scientology just swarmed that investigation and convinced LAPD to drop it. Part of the reason why, Victim B was told, was because they didn’t know about any other victims. That’s because Chrissie and Victim B didn’t know each other back then or didn’t know they were both victims at that time. It wasn’t until many years later when Chrissie, in 2016 — and the #MeToo movement was starting up — that she started hearing from other people that she wasn’t the only person who had allegations against Danny Masterson. And it’s when she realized that and finally got to meet both Victim B and Victim C, that they then decided, “We have to do something.” And that’s when they approached the LAPD. And when the LAPD reopened Victim B’s case from 2004, all the reports were missing. I mean, it’s just a bizarre set of circumstances.

They must have had to overcome a fear of Scientology being powerful enough to get an investigation killed, and a reluctance to come forward based on that, in order to do that.

The first problem they had was that some of them had moved out of the area. So like Chrissie for example, she was in Texas at the time, and had contacted her local police in Texas. They had then been put in touch with the LAPD, and the LAPD said to her, “We’ll handle it downtown. Do not go to the Hollywood Division” where the incident occurred. The LAPD itself was telling her, “You have to come downtown for this to be treated seriously.” Even then, initially the LAPD was really handling it badly, and in my first story in March 2017, I was actually able to quote from a letter that Chrissie had written to Chief (Charlie) Beck, who was the chief at the time, complaining about the initial detective not handling the case very well. They replaced her with Det. Vargas. He has really done I think a superb job since then and worked very hard to put all this together. It was a very complex case. The fact that it lasted so long, I don’t think we know yet why it took so long, but I know part of it is, it is a very complex case with a lot of different people they had to talk to.

On the D.A. side of things, were you surprised yesterday when the charges were filed?

I know it’s been torture for these women, because they would hear every few months, “OK, we’re gonna bring it to (District Attorney) Jackie Lacey and she’s going to make a decision this month. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen.” And then it would always get pushed back. No, it was not a surprise to me because I had been hearing recently they were going to have these meetings and they were going to make a decision, and they felt that it was going to happen. But again, it got moved back because of COVID. It got moved back because of the protests. And so the timing was a surprise. I did not realize that this was going to happen yesterday. But I can tell you that for some time we were hearing that there was going to be a decision of some sort soon.

Were you concerned throughout they were dragging their feet or they were not taking it seriously?

It was really hard to understand what was going on. It was very clear that the managers in the office below Jackie Lacey were all for not only charging Masterson, but charging him with the most severe penalties. I reported in February 2018, more than two years ago, that the managers in the office had signed off on charging him under this California one-strike law that would carry a 25-to-life sentence. Nobody else picked up that story. I think most people thought “Ortega must be exaggerating” or something. Now Jackie Lacey comes out and says she’s going for 45-to-life — even stronger than I had heard. It’s hard to know for sure. I had always been hearing for the last two years that the office itself was very strongly behind the idea of charging Masterson and charging him with very serious allegations and serious penalties, and it was just a matter of “When is Jackie Lacey going to make a decision?” That was just always a mystery. Now people will bring up the fact that she’s been under a lot of protest lately. Did that have something to do with it? I don’t know. Like I said, the people who work for her have been working towards this day for a long time.

When Lee Baca was sheriff there was a relationship there with the Church of Scientology and his affection for their rehabilitation programs. Do you think this is an indication that they don’t have that kind of sway or clout anymore?

I think Scientology’s influence in general has been waning, particularly in Hollywood. Hollywood was terrified of Scientology, and more recently it seems like every other show has put some kind of a Scientology joke in their scripts in the last few years. Partly it’s to say “You’re not the big scary bully anymore.” However I think there is still plenty of fear in Los Angeles in terms of Scientology. But they have lost influence I think.

In terms of looking forward to a trial, is to some degree the church going to be part of it or on trial in some way? Or does it represent a moment where people have to wake up and pay attention to them more than they have been?

That’s the subject of my story this morning, and I talked to (prominent ex-Scientologist) Mike Rinder about this yesterday and he had a really smart response about that. Scientology is really intertwined with Masterson in this case. There were some news organizations that reported the story yesterday and somehow managed not to use the word “Scientology.” I’m kind of amazed at that. Because not only is Danny Masterson a lifelong Scientologist — not only is he a faithful soldier for Scientology, and would show up at events and make strong statements in the press about Scientology — but all three of his victims, the ones that the charges are stemming from, were Scientologists at the time. And at least two out of the three I know of went to the church, who discouraged them from going to the authorities.

So Scientology is very much involved in this story. My question for Rinder, was I’ve seen some things online, people were speculating that if Masterson was charged, Scientology would distance itself. But as Mike says, they’re so involved, it will be difficult for them just to drop him. Because he thinks Danny could cause them a lot of trouble. And I think he’s right. I think there are people that were helping him prevent this from being prosecuted earlier. That’s what I’m looking forward to finding out — is just how much of a liability Scientology has in all this, and how much that will be part of this case.

Now as far as the immediate legal concerns are concerned, no, he’s not being defended by a Scientology attorney. He’s being defended by Tom Mesereau, who he hired as his defense attorney. His other longtime attorney is Marty Singer, an entertainment attorney. It’s not like Scientology is actively — in fact, they’re both being sued. That’s another thing that is interesting about this. These women were tired of waiting for Jackie Lacey to do something, so they filed a lawsuit against Scientology, (church leader David) Miscavige and Masterson. In that case, if you look at the filings, Scientology is responding with their attorneys to the parts that apply to them. Masterson is responding to the things that pertain to him. So people have asked me, “Why is Scientology defending Danny in this suit?” and I have to point out to them, technically they aren’t. Scientology’s attorneys are representing Scientology in the lawsuit. Masterson’s attorneys are representing Masterson in the suit. They’ve been keeping things fairly separate at that level.

You think they will more likely lay low than overtly cut him loose?

Right, I think they’ll be very careful about it. They’ll probably put out some general, neutral statements, about “Let justice take its course,” that kind of thing. But it would be hard for them to abandon him at this point.

Where does this fit into the history of Scientology and the courts?

Wow, that’s a big question. This is definitely one of the biggest legal milestones in Scientology history, there’s no question. As far as criminal cases, the biggest criminal case that Scientology has had to face was the Snow White prosecution in 1979, that ended up involving 11 top Scientologists who were convicted and went to prison. Since then there have been a couple of other Scientologists that were very notably prosecuted criminally. One was Rex Fowler, who was a Scientologist who killed his business partner and went to prison for it. Then there was Reed Slatkin, who was one of the largest Ponzi schemers until Bernie Madoff came along and made everyone look like pikers…

This one is just sort of hard to gauge, because I’m not sure where it’s going. It’s a combination of really awful allegations. You combine that with celebrity. I know Danny Masterson is not the biggest celebrity in the world, but a lot of young people really remember him from “That ’70s Show.” You combine that with Scientology’s reputation for bullying and legal chicanery, and boy, what a mix. I think people are going to be really interested in how this turns out. – Read more here