Danny Masterson sent to state prison to serve sentence for rape convictions, mug shot released

Stamau123@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 390 points –
Danny Masterson sent to state prison to serve sentence for rape convictions, mug shot released
apnews.com

DELANO, Calif. (AP) — “That ‘70s Show” actor Danny Masterson has been sent to a California state prison to serve his sentence for two rape convictions.

Authorities said Wednesday that the 47-year-old Masterson has been admitted to North Kern State Prison, and they released his first prison mug shot. The photo shows him wearing orange prison attire, with long hair and a beard.

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It will be more than 25 years before Masterson will be eligible for parole.

Masterson’s lawyers said they plan to

Aw hell nah the church of scientology assassinated this dude before they could finish their comment.

Rape bad, but damn that seems harsh. I don't feel bad for him but was expecting 7-15 years.

It did you just need to swipe but that is a dumb design.

I guess they replaced the photo now? It’s what I see when I loaded the article and I didn’t need to swipe

It was there. Click the arrow in the slideshow to reveal it.

If you're trying to not get convicted of rape, the least you can do is to cut your hair and beard so you don't look like a complete rapist.

Don't worry Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher will bust you out

Aston Kutcher, a celebrity famous for his philanthropy, says a man guilty of two rapes should have his charity taken into account.

In other words: A man with excess money, and who gives some of that excess to charity, says a person's charity should balance out that person's crimes.

I think it's the personal connection that makes him find reasons to consider Danny's side of things more charitably. I sort of accept that he is just a dumb Hollywood guy with a soft spot for a friend. Except for one thing...

He's involved with fighting human trafficking which ought to give him a pretty clear perspective regarding sexual assault victims. That's what I can't reconcile.

Maybe he just doesn't want to believe because he knew him for so long.

That's exactly the perspective I consider in the first paragraph and then dismiss in the second. I feel like you've just asked, "But why male models?" for the second time.

That last sentence is scorching and I hope the other dude gets his act together.

Let's have some devils advocate! Everybody loves devils advocate. Just real quick before I start cooking, I just want to say that rape is bad and there's no excuse. That's important and I'm not going to use it in my examples. Murder though - that's basically fine, I think.

A lot of crimes amount to one bad decision. A life of being a really good person and then one time you murder someone, then jail forever? (Well, yes, but actually no - first time offenders don't get life in prison, even for murder.)

Even if you have a dark side that you've been keeping under wraps, that's actually good! If there are people with dark sides, what we want is for them to not act on it - sociopaths, pedophiles - like, if we take for granted that these are conditions which occur in people and there's no cure, what we want is for them to not act on it.

But, one day, you fail, your dark side gets out and you do one of the horrible things you've been trying not to do; then it's easier to do it again, and again, and suddenly you're a serial killer. 40 years of being good despite a very difficult challenge, to suppress that darkness, but the rest of your life, you're judged for the few bad decisions you made in moments of weakness.

Let's talk about Ebeneezer Scrooge. Tis the season after all.

That dude was a total dick for like 60 years, but, in the end of the story, he's changed - it's a redemption story. But his name, Scrooge, is a commonplace synonym which characterizes him as a villain; fuck his redemption, he lived most of his life as a dick, and we remember him that way.

So which is it? Do we judge based on most of their lives, or do we judge based on a recent set of decisions which severely depart from that? Or do we just go with whichever was worst?

When it comes to Ashton Kutcher, like, even a serial killer isn't murdering literally every moment of their day. They have jobs, they go to the store. All that time, that person is being a good person, they're suppressing their darkness. It's easy to see a person in that light when that's how you've seen them for basically your entire adult life.

That said, Ashton Kutcher is a rich TV star so basically all his opinions are invalid. He probably only helps victims of sex trafficking because his PR team thought it would be a good fit for his brand. Not to say he doesn't like helping - I'm just saying fuck that guy. Fuck all those guys.

That was quite a journey, my friend. To address your central point, I'm certain a scenario such as you propose happens. However, the reality is most people commit far more crime than they are ever caught and tried for. Especially when it comes to rape which is one of the most under-reported and under-prosecuted crimes. I'm going by memory here so I might be wrong, but something like 3% of accused rapists get convicted. So worst case scenario, you or I could go rape someone right now and be virtually guaranteed of getting away with it.

It's vastly more likely that this wasn't a one-time thing, but the tip of the iceberg. Of course, we can't be sure but statistics tells us Danny likely isn't someone waging an internal war with a rapist who lost once. It's also the case that once you commit a crime once, it becomes easier and more comfortable to do it again.

Of course if one of my friends was accused of rape, I'd say that doesn't sound like them at all. After all, if I thought one of my friends was a rapist we wouldn't be friends for long. But in terms of keeping people safe, it would be irresponsible of us to give people the benefit of doubt and hope they've learned their lesson. We would almost certainly be wrong.

But ultimately, Ashton should know that already. I will grant him that the statements written by him and Mila were given months before all the details were made public.

Yeah I think my final point about Ashton should've been more prominent - he's just a TV star, he shouldn't be our moral compass.

It's great he's contributing to this cause but his efforts are a tiny candle when compared to the efforts of the people his money is going to. He sits on a stage, looks handsome, and talks into a microphone about how you shouldn't kidnap people and sell them into sexual slavery. He's not holding anyone's hair back while they vomit.

But ultimately, Ashton should know that already. I will grant him that the statements written by him and Mila were given months before all the details were made public.

I think this is the most likely factor in why both Kutcher and Kunis wrote statements. They knew a friend was in court (who probably told them it was all crap and that they were innocent) and that their friend would benefit from a reference from someone well known who could vouch for their good character. So they did it to help a friend who they likely believed would be cleared of wrongdoing.

Then all the details came out and it became clear that he was probably guilty and statements were already sent. They could have requested them back but probably thought it wouldn't make a difference in the result of the case and either didn't worry about it for that reason or just tried to rationalize that they were standing by a friend because of the good old days when he wasn't doing terrible things.

I'm not reading this whole novel, but

A lot of crimes amount to one bad decision.

Rape isn't "one bad decision," it's a continuous string of bad decisions the entire time it's happening. Two rapes is certainly not "one bad decision." Dude raped two women. That's a pattern. He's a serial rapist. He needs to die in prison before he inevitably rapes again.

I'm not going to read what you wrote, I'll just assume I know what you've said based on the first part.

Thanks.

My example was murder, which can be one bad decision. I talked about serial crimes and remorse and all that later - but none of my post was about forgiveness, it was about, specifically, why Ashton Kutcher might say what he did about Masterson.

What interests me about the topic, and why I made that post, is the interplay between redemption (eg Scrooge) and ... whatever redemption's opposite is (eg Masterson).

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If using a charity is something Ashton thinks you can use as a get out of jail free card, then what fucking shit does he do, he's been helping with that anti sex trafficking thing, that's a big ol get out of jail free card in Ashton's mind.

I really don't like how much hate they got for this

If someone you love does something horrible, the emotions don't just disappear. It's like grief, people have to work through it, and it happens in different ways.

For them, their long time friend has done something to (for them) hypothetical victims. They asked for leniency in a non-public way...

It's an extremely human thing to do. It doesn't live up to their ideals, but it doesn't invalidate everything they've done

Makes me think of a dark night in 2001…. 🤔

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Are those two on a speedrun to be the most unbearable couple?

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To clarify, North Kern is an intake facility. He'll be there for a few weeks undergoing psych evals and other testing to determine which facility he will be sent to for permanent incarceration.

he's fucked, Prison sucks, but California Prison system really, really sucks

i've heard the racial stuff is really intense... so you either end up an Aryan Nation type, or you end up being bitched out by everyone else...
but, since he's rich and famous, he'll probably get special treatment and be able to buy protection (like Jared Fogle)
i've also heard that prisoners all hate rapists

i've also heard that prisoners all hate rapists

Such noble creatures these prisoners are...

not noble... but they tend to hate certain types of criminals more than others...

This is the first I'm hearing of this - Yes I've been living under a rock. Can anyone give me a brief rundown of what he did? The article said it happened in the 2000s but didn't give specifics.

Danny Masterson is a rapist and Scientologist.

He’s going gaol because Scientology couldn’t protect him from the consequences his actions forever.

Interesting, I've never seen that form of the word jail actually used today. Where are you from if I may ask?

Australia.

Jail's slowly edging out as the only spelling post-Americanisation, but I was taught gaol in the '90s so it's not super archaic here like it probably is in other Commonwealth countries.

At first I thought you were just trying to be an edgy teen or troll. This is interesting.

Oh how interesting, I went to school in the early 00's and we only ever learnt jail. Tbh, the only time I ever see gaol anymore is on historic gaols.

It's used heavily in Elden ring and was my exposure to the word

There is a Jaol Rd around where I used to live in Canada, it's the road the provincial jail is on.

Yes, but what did he do?

Did he put shit in people's drinks like Cosby?

Did he rape a girl behind a dumpster like one of the Affluenza Kids?

Is he just a disgusting person like Justin Roiland?

Or is he a good guy like David Bowie, only his victims didn't think so this time?

I nearly read "North Kern" as North Korean

Talk about a dramatic way to put him in a place nobody knows who he is

Mugshot not in the article so where is it?

I think you’re supposed to keep clicking around to find it.

99% of all websites need to go away

Tangentially related but I rewatched Face/Off last night and realised he has a very short role, extremely foreshadowing.

He's lucky we live in a civil society.

I'd have voted to chemically castrate anyone convicted of rape and then put him in gen pop.

So in your scenario, what happens if someone is wrongly convicted?

Oh that's easy the supreme Court already said it doesn't matter. Being convicted is enough even if you are truly innocent.

Nobody is ever wrongfully convicted. We have the perfect system and it never ever makes mistakes.

i just came from a post about OJ Simpson so believe me when i say everything this guy dudeman just said is true

In this case, it might actually be okay if they're wrongly convicted and chemically castrated rather than executed as chemical castration can usually be reversed (you have to scroll down a bit, but it's mentioned).. It's not like you burn off anyone's genitals.

“Just hormones.”

Anyone who has ever seen someone on hormonal medication knows that it can profoundly change your outlook and personality. Even birth control can have emotional impacts on people, and they may not even notice it because the medication is so normalized that people don’t see it as a potential problem.

I edited that bit cos I knew someone would think that was my entire point. But as you said yourself "it CAN have" (emphasis mine) undesirable effects. Most medications, hormonal or not, CAN have these effects. But the vast majority of people on these medications don't get these effects. And even if every person who was chemically castrated suffered these effects (and again, they don't, we wouldn't use it to treat some diseases if it did), the fact it's reversible makes it infinitely better than the death penalty. Reality isn't perfect. There's always gonna be compromises.

My observation is that it seems like a significant percentage of people do experience the side effects, but either don’t connect the dots to the medication, or the benefit outweighs the problem. A quick google search has revealed that this is an issue that is getting increased attention over the last few years.

“The study of over a million Danish women over age 14, using hard data like diagnosis codes and prescription records, strongly suggests that there is an increased risk of depression associated with all types of hormonal contraception.

…the IUD was particularly associated with depression in all age groups is especially significant, because traditionally, physicians have been taught that the IUD only acts locally and has no effects on the rest of the body. Clearly, this is not accurate.”

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/can-hormonal-birth-control-trigger-depression-201610172517

“Among contraceptive users aged 15–49 in 2018, female permanent contraception was the most common method used (28%), followed by pills (21%), male condoms and IUDs (both 13%).”

https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/contraceptive-method-use-united-states

I’ve been having a little trouble finding out how many women specifically in that range are sexually active, but I found a few articles that seem to show that the numbers for men and women are around 70% - 75%. For the sake of this post, I’m going to call it 72%.

I looked up the census data for 2018, which showed that there were 164,730,000 women living in the US at that time. 72% are likely to be sexually active, so that makes 118,605,600. Because I can’t be sure if they differentiated copper IUD’s from hormonal, we’ll just look at pills. 21% equals 24,907,176. About 2% of women in the Dutch study said they experienced depression from the pills, so that gives us 498,143.52—nearly half a million—women who are likely to be experiencing depression from pill form birth control alone. This number obviously increases when you include the other forms of hormonal birth control that I couldn’t calculate here, plus all the other forms of hormonal medication.

Not sure why you've posted all of this given I've not once mentioned hormonal contraceptives and there's not much data here to support your claim... 2% is an incredibly low number. Sure, when you have such a large population it involves a lot of people, but statistically, it's stupid low. You've also misinterpreted the data given a bit, the risk of depression when on a hormonal contraceptives was 2.2%. The risk of depression when not on one is 1.7%. Again, that affects a lot of people, but it's not the number you've calculated being caused by the contraceptive alone, and is still statistically very low. So, I'm just gonna completely ignore your anecdotal observations given at the start of your comment and rely on the hard data you've given. Which, admittedly, is only for one branch of hormonal medicine, but the data given does neatly support my claim that most people don't experience these wild side effects you initially ascribed to the treatments.

2 or 1% is a huge number when we are talking about hundreds of millions of people are you daft

An extra .5% is hundreds of thousands of people.

And the numbers are US only. There's other countries that have this type of medication available.

Statistically, no it's not. Sure, it covers a large number of individuals, but it covers so little of the total population that it's pretty insignificant. There are side effects that occur more frequently with these drugs, and we don't care much about them either cos they are so low. I mean, yeah treat those who do get side effects bu the STATISTICAL likelihood of that happening is so low, they aren't gonna pull the drug from the shelves. And I didn't say that none of the population who takes these drugs suffer mental side effects. I said most of them don't. And given the best counter argument I've been given is "2% of them do", well, I'm gonna stand by my original assertion. Also, your maths is way off. If 2% of the population is a little under half a million (and I haven't checked the other person's maths, but I skimmed it and it seemed fine so I have no reason to distrust it), then 0.5% of the population is not "hundreds of thousands of people". At most, it's a bit over 125k people...

And let's get back to why I said this. It's about chemical castration of convicted criminals (whether they are actually guilty is kinda immaterial, they're convicted and the point of doing this is so we don't kill them if they are actually innocent and can later prove it). When the fuck did we suddenly care that 2% of them might get depressed?! I guarantee being in prison raises their risk of depression by way more than 2%... I mean, I bet none of you expected that you were teeing off on a pathologist who can point out why you're wrong, but Jesus, how was this ever an issue? Like I said, 100% reversible (from a quick read of two papers, contraceptive depression gwnerally resolves upon cessation) and 100% preferable to executing an innocent person. Fuck me. You people are insane...

I'm not talking about punitive sterilization or the death penalty. I am talking about the economic burden of depression which is apparently quite a bit.

If it's so low, should the drug manufacturers make up this value and compensate these women? Or is it too much?

Women should have access to safe and effective birth control, without gambling on burdening themselves. Having bodily autonomy is a part of equal rights, and this attitude that the current solutions are 'safe enough it's fine' is misogynistic.

Yeah, but I'm not. I was talking about how using hormones might be okay in this one instance. I couldn't give two shits about hormonal contraception and it's consequences for women at this time as it's completely irrelevant to my point. I will say this much though, one, your second paragraph is so poorly worded it makes literally no sense. And two, you aren't as smart as you think you are if you think this is what makes the medical system mysognistic. The whole thing is set up to favour white men. This is a tiny drop in the bucket as to how fucked the whole system is. Cos an incredibly low number of women, statistically, getting depressed when using one form of medication is nothing compared to how many of them die of easily treated heart conditions, as just one example.

Can we get back to the point now? The one that chemical castration is maybe okay as a punishment cos it's reversible?

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I guess we're all going to slide past the gen pop as a shortcut to capital punishment. Makes the chemical castration kind of irrelevant, doesn't it?

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In my scenario, the proof would have to be concrete so ideally there's no such thing as wrongly convicted.

Proof like caught in the act, semen / blood sample and / or video proof like with child porn.

Literally all of that can easily be falsified, and historically has been to wrongly imprison people.

Caught in the act by the judge and jury themselves? Or by a witness who promises they saw it?

Video proof like what AI can easily fabricate these days?

It sounds like you don't trust any evidence and think Danny was falsely imprisoned based on that lack of trust.

Is everyone in jail innocent?

You've chosen to miss the point by taking my statement to extremes.

If you demand harsher punishment, it'll happen to at least one innocent person. It doesn't matter who that innocent person is. You're stating that's okay with you.

Basically impossible unless people start raping people in the police station, even then good luck getting cops to collect evidence on eachother

Also semen... If I creampie my wife she can go claim rape? What about every other woman I've creampied? Why do you think any single piece of evidence could be strong enough for this sentence? Even a video could just be roleplay on it's own.

You need to read up on how people are prosecuted before making suggestions how they should be sentenced.

If you creampie your wife and she uses that against you to charge you with rape, you married a cunt or you raped her. Or both.

Great example Einstein.

So your response to "this can be easily faked" is "guess you should have picked a better wife"??

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You're basically admitting you're a shit person

And you're basically valuing the quality of life of rapists over that if their victims.

Unless you intend to rape somebody, what personal stake do you have in what form of punishment is appropriate for such a vile act?

You (deliberately, it seems) have missed the point.

Is the person you replied to worse than the hypothetical rapist in their argument?

I don't see your point. So yeah, missing it big time.

I'm admitting I'd support worse treatment for people who rape than what we do currently.

If that makes me a shit person. I'm ok with that.

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