Danny Masterson Appeals Rape Conviction, Claims Court Allowed 'Fundamental Flaws' in Case 'to the Detriment of the Defense'

Danny Masterson is appealing his rape conviction.

In a Dec. 18 filing, the actor’s lawyers revealed they officially filed to overturn his September 2023 conviction for the rape of two women. They explained the appeal and what steps would be taken next in a statement on the Law Offices of Cliff Gardner’s website.

“The Appellant’s Opening Brief submitted on December 18, 2024, demonstrates two fundamental flaws in Danny Masterson's convictions: (1) the trial was rife with erroneous judicial rulings that skewed the jury’s view of the evidence against him and (2) there was a stunning amount of exculpatory evidence which was never presented to the jury,” it reads. “But the appeal represents only one part of Danny’s challenge to his convictions. Danny’s habeas lawyer will be following up on the opening brief with a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus documenting additional defects in the trial process. Stay tuned as we work toward Danny’s complete exoneration.”

Related: A Timeline of Danny Masterson's Controversies

In 2020, Masterson was charged with forcibly raping three women in separate incidents between 2001 and 2003. He was later convicted for two of those rapes in 2023.

At the time, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller said Masterson was “consistent in the manner in which he forcibly raped each of his victims.”

“He surreptitiously drugged the victims using an alcoholic beverage as the vehicle for administration, and then forcibly raped them as they became incapacitated,” he told PEOPLE in a September 2023 interview. "This afforded him the opportunity to obtain control and dominance over his victims as he carried out his forcible assaults."

Toxicology tests were never run on the victims, but an expert testified on the stand that the symptoms they described aligned with the date-rape drug GHB.

Related: Danny Masterson Transferred to State Prison and Mugshot Released After Rape Conviction

According to documents obtained by PEOPLE, Masterson’s attorneys said that a 2004 investigation into one of the victims' cases turned up a lack of evidence, so the District Attorney “declined to prosecute.” Moreover, they referenced the first jury trial in 2022, which ended in a mistrial, saying that “at both trials, jurors had significant reservations.”

They also claimed that the testimony of the victims “changed dramatically over the years” and suggested it was because a criminal conviction would lift the civil statute of limitations, allowing them to seek monetary damages.

“The defense in this case was simple: Mr. Masterson knew both women socially and the sex was consensual,” the 246-page filing reads. “There was no physical evidence supporting the state’s theory, there were no admissions, there were no inculpatory pretext calls. In the absence of such independent corroborating evidence, [victims] J.B. and N.T. were the pivotal witnesses for the state -- their credibility would be critical to the state’s case.”

During the trial, the prosecution defended the victims’ new memories by claiming it is common for details to come back to survivors of trauma as time goes on. The defense also argued that the three victims “admitted ignoring very specific police admonishments not to discuss the case with each other during the six years leading up to trial.”

The defense also noted how “at trial, they claimed these communications were not about their anticipated testimony regarding the sexual encounters themselves.”

The appeal further claimed that evidence was lost in the time between one victim’s reporting of the alleged rape and the trial.

“Although police had tape recorded their initial interview with J.B., police lost that recording by 2020,” it alleged. “This was very damaging to the defense. At trial, J.B. insisted that in 2004 she had told police facts which were contained in her trial testimony but police had neglected to include in their contemporaneous police reports. The loss of the tape recording precluded the defense from presenting the only evidence which could conclusively rebut J.B.’s effort to bolster her own credibility. In other words, ‘memories [had] faded, evidence ha[d] been lost, and witnesses ha[d] disappeared,’ all to the detriment of the defense.”

"Equally important, the fundamental purpose of a limitations period — to ensure a fair and reliable trial before witnesses die, memories fade and evidence is lost — was directly implicated here," the docs read. "In this case, exculpatory witnesses had died, the memories of other percipient witnesses had faded and police had lost critical evidence."

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If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.

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