Danny Masterson’s lawyer filed an appeals brief seeking a complete reversal of his convictions for rape, arguing that the “That ’70s Show” star’s accusers significantly altered their stories to squeeze through a labyrinth of statutes-of-limitations laws in order to pursue monetary damages through a civil case.
The 60,000-word brief – equivalent to more than 200 pages – made several arguments to immediately free Masterson, who was sentenced in September 2023 to 30 years to life in prison for the assaults of two women who testified in his Los Angeles re-trial. The first trial ended in a hung jury in November 2022.
The filing from Cliff Gardner picked apart the timeline of the accusers’ stories in exhausting detail, outlining how each “evolved” their memories over the years more than a half-dozen times. He suggested that they tailored their accounts knowing that a criminal conviction would open the long-expired limitations statutes preventing them from seeking a significant financial reward – and that the trial court improperly stopped him from making that argument to the juries.
Gardner pointed out in his introduction that the initial mistrial and split verdict at re-trial – with “protracted jury deliberations at both” – shows that jurors already had reservations about the credibility of the witnesses, despite the critical omission of their possible motives.
“Jurors at both trials learned that the testimony of [the accusers] changed dramatically over the years,” Gardner wrote. “The many changes over time – involving both sharply changing recollections as to some facts and the wholesale addition of new facts never before mentioned – consistently pointed in one direction: to a newly minted claim that force was used.”
Gardner added that the accusers stayed in touch, and were well aware that the California statute of limitations for both criminal and civil rape cases had long passed, coordinating their stories to fit the requirements – in this case, multiple victims – to re-open criminal prosecution. Only with a conviction secured could they then proceed to sue the disgraced TV actor for monetary damages.
Gardner argued that the court’s ruling to withhold that detail was “irreconcilable with more than a century of California law.”
“But the statute of limitations issue here was just the tip of the unreliability iceberg,” Gardner wrote. “Predictably, within one year of the criminal verdict, both [accusers] moved to amend their pending lawsuit” to reap a bigger financial reward.
The filing included text and phone communications between the victims and detectives that Gardner said show a clear understanding of the legal hurdles necessary to re-open a civil case – and a clear intent to do so.
“Ugh,” one of the accusers put in a text message to a Los Angeles detective. “I was told [the other two accusers] are both out of the case. And that means [state law] 667.61 is out and therefore statute is an issue and my [civil] case can’t go forward.” She then asked the detective to call one of the accusers to get her back on board with the criminal case.
Citing the landmark 1913 Supreme Court ruling People v. Fleming, Gardner argued that “the trial court violated both state and federal law in precluding defense counsel from presenting evidence showing that the complaining witnesses had a direct financial interest in the outcome of the criminal trial.”
He also noted that the court improperly suppressed communications between the accusers, which the defense requested via subpoenas; that the admission of testimony about the Church of Scientology violated First Amendment church-state separation norms; and that the 16-year delay between the initial police report and prosecution violated Masterson’s due-process rights, among other arguments for an immediate reversal.
