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Posted: 2023-09-07T18:39:33Z | Updated: 2023-09-07T22:56:28Z

That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison Thursday for raping two women at his Hollywood Hills home in the early 2000s.

You were not convicted based on rumors, innuendo, gossip and speculation, Judge Charlaine Olmedo said before handing down the sentence, according to reporter Meghann Cuniff . You were convicted based on evidence that 12 people in the community found to be credible. You were convicted because each of the victims reported the rapes to someone shortly after the rapes occurred.

The 47-year-old actor and prominent Scientologist was found guilty May 31 on two counts of forcible rape and had faced a sentence of 15 years to life for each count. The jury was not able to reach a verdict on an additional count of rape involving a third woman.

Prosecutors had said Scientology officials protected the actor for years after he drugged and sexually assaulted the women, who were also Scientologists but have since left the church, in three separate incidents between 2001 and 2003. They testified that the church barred them from reporting the assaults to police, blamed them for the alleged rapes and harassed, intimidated and stalked them .

I was terrorized, harassed and had privacy invaded daily by cult of Scientology for almost seven years since reporting the rape to authorities, Jane Doe 2 told the court, directing her comments to Masterson, according to reporter Tony Ortega , When you raped me, you stole from me. That is effect of spirit, you disfigured my life, stole my self-worth, less capacity for joy, youve made every part of me turn on myself.

Jane Doe 3, who had been in a relationship with Masterson, said in her written statement that Masterson had caused her to view her body as a crime scene, broken, deformed and left her unable to ask for help because of her fear and shame.

I didnt choose to be born into Scientology and their rules, just like I didnt choose to be raped by Danny Masterson, Jane Doe 1 said, according to Cuniff . As a result of the rape, she said, her ties with her family were severed and her life had been hijacked.

This was the second trial for Masterson, who was charged with the three rapes in June 2020 . The first trial ended on Nov. 30, 2022, with the jury deadlocked on all counts . In that trial, the judge did not allow the prosecution to say Masterson had drugged the women. That jury only heard that the women identified as Jane Does 1, 2 and 3 had been incapacitated when Masterson allegedly raped them.