Excerpt:
Masterson, 47, was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo on Thursday despite the pleas from his “That ’70s Show” co-stars Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, among others.
“I do not believe he is an ongoing harm to society and having his daughter raised without a present father would [be] a tertiary injustice in and of itself,” Kutcher wrote in his letter, which was published first by reporter Meghann Cuniff.
The letters in support of defendants by their family and supporters are routine in criminal cases before sentencing. In Masterson’s case, they came as part of a 108-page filing reviewed by The Times. Neither Kunis nor Kutcher argued that Masterson was not guilty of the crimes, but they vouched for his character and the person they knew him to be.
“From the very beginning, I could sense his innate goodness and genuine nature,” Kunis said in her letter. “His caring nature and ability to offer guidance have been instrumental in my growth both personally and professionally.”
In Kutcher’s letter, he noted a time when he said Masterson jumped to the defense of a woman whose boyfriend was berating her at a pizza restaurant.
“It was an incident he didn’t have to get involved in but proactively chose to because the way this man was behaving was not right,” Kutcher wrote.
Both actors said Masterson’s anti-drug attitude helped them to stay on the straight and narrow during their careers in Hollywood.
When you are convicted of raping multiple women, your true character is showing.
He should spend the next 30 years thinking about his crime.
The person who committed these crimes and the person who his friends describe cannot coexist. One is a fraud, an image he means to project. It’s not hard to figure out which is which…
Of course you don’t want to admit to yourself or others that this person you care about is a monster. I feel bad for his friends and family, and of course the victims.
Maybe an unpopular opinion and definitely not to minimize the raping of women, but when the Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio got only 22 years for literal seditious conspiracy, it just feels a little unbalanced. Two women over trying to overthrow a whole country? Why aren’t the numbers of these sentences switched?
Can any lawyers explain?
It’s a fool’s errand to try to make sense of the US justice system. One of the main problems is that there are so many laws, each with their own individual sentencing guidelines or suggested financial penalties for breaking them. The police are in charge of enforcing the laws (and ruining random people’s lives as a little treat), the courts are occasionally in charge of making sure that the laws comport with the constitution, and the legislators in a given area make laws for their area. But nobody is in charge of sorting everything and making sure that all of the laws on the books make sense with each other. Or that the sentencing guidelines are sane and reflect a certain set of values. It’s a fucking mess.
So, when you have a case like serial rapist Danny Masterson, you can’t really compare it with a case for anti-masturbation, brown white supremacist Enrique Tarrio. Different sets of people with different goals and beliefs wrote the laws against rape and sedition, and nobody has ever taken the time to make sure they are in the right places on the punishment scale.
Damn, thanks for explaining. Really does sound like a fool’s errand to understand such a fractured mess.
Good god you people.
I think a problem in your logic is the number of charges each person received. I dont know either case so keep that in mind while reading this.
Also the proud boy informed, so got a lighter sentence
Ah okay that makes sense
