In a setback for Danny Masterson’s defense team, a judge ruled Monday that prosecutors may subpoena a fourth woman to testify that the actor raped her.
Judge Charlene Olmedo had previously excluded the woman’s testimony from the trial, but said Monday that defense arguments had prompted her to change her ruling.
Masterson is charged with forcibly raping three women from 2001 through 2003. Prosecutors want to summon the fourth woman, identified in court as Trisha F. , to show a pattern of alleged sexual misconduct. According to Attorney General Reinhold Muller, Trisha F. That Masterson had sex with her twice while she was drunk in 1996, when Masterson was 20 years old.
Masterson’s attorney, Philip Cohen, argued that allowing testimony to be given at a late stage of the trial violated Masterson’s due process rights.
“I don’t know what has changed since the court’s pretrial ruling,” Cohen said. “It’s a big issue.”
Cohen requested a false trial, as he did at several other points in the trial. Olmedo denied the movement.
Cohen argued at trial that the three defendants colluded with each other to advance against Masterson. He has noted several times that they ignored investigators’ warnings not to talk to each other, and argued that as a result their accounts had become “multi-pollinated”.
Mueller requested that Trisha F. be contacted to testify as she is not part of the accused trio, and has had only limited contact with one of the three. Mueller argued that her account shares hallmarks of the main defendants’ allegations.
“I think the jury is entitled to hear Trisha F,” Mueller said. “To not let them know that this person exists, I think it would be unfair.”
The other three women have already testified. The prosecution is expected to call a few other witnesses, including Lisa Marie Presley, a friend of one of the defendants.
Cohen has not yet announced whether Masterson will take a stand in his own defense. The defense indicated that he might summon a toxicology expert and that he might summon Jin Doe No. 2 to the stand as well.
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