“Those rifles are enough to take out a school. Those are serious assault rifles,” one of Masterson’s Jane Doe victims said after a court hearing Thursday
Convicted rapist Danny Masterson finally relinquished his personal stockpile of automatic weapons last week, three years after he was ordered to do so following his 2020 arrest for three counts of forcible rape, his lawyer told a Los Angeles judge Thursday.
The disgraced That ‘70s Show actor has been locked up in Los Angeles County jail since he was sentenced to 30 years to life in September following his May conviction for two of the three rapes. His move to state prison was held up when an Oct. 31 probation report found that he failed to turn over 10 of the 23 firearms registered in his name when he was arrested in 2020. One of the 10 guns had been destroyed, his lawyer Kate Mangles told the court last month. She was given until Thursday to track down the remaining nine and avoid a court-ordered search and seizure.
On Thursday, Mangels filed a sworn declaration stating six assault rifles and two handguns had been “relinquished” to TJ Gun Sales in Oregon on November 28 for storage. The stash included a Colt Sporter assault rifle, a Knights Stoner AR-15 style rifle, a Springfield Armory SAR-4800 semi-automatic rifle, a Robinson Armament M96 semi-automatic rifle, a Hungarian version of the AK-47 known as a Kassnar SA-85M, and a Pacific Armament Imbel .308 sniper rifle.
A ninth weapon identified as a Bushmaster XM15 E2S was turned over to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff on Nov. 30 to be destroyed, the paperwork filed by Mangels and obtained by Rolling Stone states.
At a Thursday hearing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo said it appeared all of Masterson’s weapons had been “properly relinquished.” She promised prosecutors she would request a final probation report to confirm everything was in order. She said Masterson could be transferred to state prison after that, and jurisdiction over his case would transfer to the court where he pursues his appeal.
One of Masterson’s Jane Doe victims attended the hearing after saying last month that she was “scared” by the revelation her assailant had access to high-powered assault weapons while he was out on bail pending trial. She said Thursday that his “eleventh-hour” surrender of the firearms left her with lingering questions about how he managed to evade compliance for so long and where he kept the small arsenal.
“Why didn’t he turn them over? Why did he want to maintain them for all these years despite a court order and a judge’s order, putting his bail and freedom at risk? Those rifles are enough to take out a school. Those are serious assault rifles,” she said after the hearing. The Jane Doe testified at trial that Masterson pulled a gun out of his nightstand the night he raped her in 2003.
