Danny Masterson is a few weeks into his 30-year prison sentence for rape, but now that his criminal case is wrapped up, Masterson and Scientology are going to have to go back to court for the 2019 harassment case that was filed against him for allegedly harassing several of the women who had accused him of sexual assault. This comes from Deadline, which says the case will now go to trial on September 22, 2025—with “court backlogs and an expected flood of discovery filings” being some of the reasons why that date is so far off.
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The accusers in this case, who also participated in Masterson’s criminal trial, are former members of Scientology who claim that Masterson and Scientology “repeatedly harassed” them, put them under surveillance, and “slaughtered” their pets after they went to the LAPD with their allegations. Scientology’s response was that, as former members, these women had already agreed to have any issues like this with other members handled through “religious arbitration”—which is to say without the police or the courts—and the courts actually agreed initially. Last year, though, an appeals court overturned that decision and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take on the case, so now it’s free to move forward… eventually.
That being said, Scientology hasn’t publicly responded to this development, but Deadline says it did express that it wanted the existing delay to stay in place while the Plaintiffs consider whether or not they intend to amend their complaint—which they are apparently thinking about doing, but haven’t made a final decision about yet. So there is an argument being made that it should have gotten a date at all, even if the date is so far off.
There are a few noteworthy things about this case, the most obvious being that it’s coming in the wake of Masterson’s conviction, but also this lawsuit specifically mentions Scientology, while the criminal case pointedly did not. That puts this in line with Leah Remini’s recently filed suit against Scientology, wherein she accused the organization of “monitoring the activities of Scientologists and non-Scientologists and exacting revenge and retribution on anyone who has been declared an enemy of Scientology”—a practice she’s looking to end permanently.