The components are familiar: a powerful celebrity man in the dock, women bringing accusations of rape, jurors, lawyers and a judge attempting to apply the law by overseeing the legal process.
But as two separate high-profile #MeToo trials play out in different courtrooms in New York and Los Angeles there is one more unusual issue they both touch on: the Church of Scientology.
In one trial, the two-time Oscar winner Paul Haggis is accused in civil proceedings by the film publicist Haleigh Breest of forcing her to perform oral sex and raping her after she agreed to a drink in his Manhattan apartment after a 2013 movie premiere. Haggis denies the claims.
Haggis was, for 34 years, a member of the Church of Scientology. Attorneys for the Crash and Million Dollar Baby screenwriter have claimed that Breest falsely claimed rape to angle for a payout and won pre-trial motions to present the theory that Scientology is behind the allegations of rape against him as part of an effort to discredit his criticism of the organization.
In the other trial, the That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson is criminally charged with raping three women between 2001 and 2003. The women allege he plied them with alcohol and sexually assaulted them in his Hollywood Hills home. Masterson, 46, has pleaded not guilty.
Masterson remains in the fold of L Ron Hubbard’s hierarchical Scientology organization while his accusers are former members of the church who say they were discouraged by church officials from taking their rape claims against the actor to the authorities.
In pre-trial hearings, one of the three “Jane Does” testified that a church official directed her to write a statement showing she would “take responsibility” for an alleged 2001 assault.
Another accuser claimed that a Scientology attorney came to her family’s home to warn that she would be expelled from the organization if she went to authorities or “wog-law”, as the organization terms police and courts.
A spokeswoman has said that the organization has no policy against reporting crimes. “Church policy explicitly demands Scientologists abide by all laws of the land,” Karin Pouw told the LA Times.
Lawyers for Masterson asked the Los Angeles superior court judge Charlaine Olmedo to bar any mention of Scientology at trial. “The only thing the jury could use this evidence to really consider would be emotional bias to convict Mr Masterson based on the conduct of this alleged, uncharged co-defendant of the church,” Karen Goldstein said at a hearing.
Ultimately, Olmedo ruled that she would allow “limited” testimony about Scientology policies as long as it relates to why it took Masterson’s accusers so long to report the alleged rapes. “This is not going to be a trial on Scientology,” she warned.
In a separate civil suit against Scientology and Masterson, four women – including three from the Masterson criminal trial – have claimed that they were stalked and harassed by agents of the church after they reported to police in 2017 that they had been assaulted by Masterson.
A spokesperson for the Church of Scientology said in a statement: “Inserting religion into this trial appears to be an attempt by the DA in Masterson and Haggis in his own case to divert attention from the relevant facts, whatever they may be.” Lawyers for the organization and Masterson have said they are ready to begin filing motions and proceed in their defense of the civil suit.
Earlier this month, the US supreme court denied the Church of Scientology’s request to prevent the plaintiffs from suing the religious organization and instead enforce a religious arbitration clause in its member contract that ensures disputes are resolved away from public scrutiny.
Tony Ortega, a longtime critic of the religious organization whose Underground Bunker blog broke the news of the Los Angeles police department’s investigation into Masterson in early 2017, five months before #MeToo “went viral”, says the confluence of Scientology and #MeToo has caused complications.
“The alleged victims are a little irritated when people say this is a #MeToo case because it actually predates it and because they’ve had such little help from the major #MeToo supporters,” he says. “I think Scientology scares people, and I think that Masterson being in Scientology makes it complicated.”
In a recently published account of escaping the high ranks of Scientology, A Billion Years, author Mike Rinder warned plainly: “Scientology is a unique and vengeful monster.”
Rinder testified at the Haggis trial as a defense witness on Friday that he used to head Scientology’s office of special affairs – a division, he said, that used spies and investigators to pursue and silence “enemies” of the organization.
Scientology, Rinder said, directed his office to find out “what their weaknesses are and you threaten them with it”.
“You blackmail the person into silence,” he said, adding that “Scientology will never admit to it.” But Rinder did not offer any material evidence to back up Haggis’s claim that the organization was in some way behind Breest’s accusation.
Ortega says that efforts by the organization to restrict testimony about Scientology are, if anything, evidence that the organization is a hierarchical, male-dominated society in excess of traditional Hollywood power structures.
“It’s come out clearly in testimony that this is about Masterson’s privilege as a celebrity and as a Scientology celebrity. Jane Doe three was told [by church officials] you can’t be raped in a relationship. Jane Does one and three were told they had to go through counselling to find out what they had done to make them victims.”
On Wednesday, one of Masterson’s three accusers was directed by Olmedo not to stray too far into discussions of the religious organization. The subject came up anyway when the woman testified that some of her mutual friends filed so-called “knowledge reports” signaling their unhappiness after she told them about her alleged incident with Masterson.
The woman said she was summoned by a Scientology ethics officer. “You can never be a victim,” the woman testified the official told her. “No matter what happens, you’re always responsible.” Asked if she still feared retaliation from anyone for coming forward, she replied “about half this courtroom”.
In New York, Priya Chaudhry, the lead attorney for Haggis, told the court in opening statements that her client had foretold in a 2011 interview in the New Yorker that the Scientology leaders would try to “find dirt” on him. “Scientology is very successful at destroying its enemies without leaving a single fingerprint behind,” Chaudhry said.
But in her testimony, Breest said that the Church of Scientology was not supporting her case, pre-empting Haggis’s attorneys introduction of the theme. Later asked if she is currently or ever had been a Scientologist, Breest said she had not. Asked if Scientology had provided “any kind of support whatsoever in this case?” Breest again said no.
• This article was amended on 1 November 2022 to add a statement from the Church of Scientology that was provided after publication.
