Two other women have alleged that Masterson raped them, but because of expired statutes of limitations and/or insufficient evidence, the LA District Attorney’s office declined to press charges.
Tony Ortega, a former editor of The Village Voice, reported in 2017 that at least three of the women claimed they were pressured to keep quiet by the Church of Scientology, to which they and Masterson belonged. The Church of Scientology denied that it had pressured victims.
The charges of pressure by the church were repeated in a lawsuit filed last year against Masterson and the church by four women who have accused Masterson of rape. A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Robert Thompson, said the criminal charges against Masterson are closely related to the accusations made in the lawsuit by the women who said that after they accused Masterson of sexual assault, people associated with the church had stalked, threatened and surveilled them as they spoke out about their allegations. Three of the women had been personally involved with the church. (emphasis mine)
There are two things we need to know here. The first is the progression of criminal charges against Masterson. The allegations against him are horrible, and, if true, he must be held accountable.
The second thing we should keep on our radar screens is the civil litigation against the Church of Scientology. It may be put on hold until Masterson’s criminal case in completed (but I hope not).
We need to know the extent of the cover-up of abuse, rape, and harassment that goes on when a prominent Scientologist is accused of a crime. How many other victims of Scientologists have been harassed into fear and silence?
How many other predators have been protected by Dave Miscavige (the self-appointed leader of the Church of Scientology) and his henchmen?
If you want to report abuse in Scientology, it’s safe to come forward. You can do so anonymously. If you were abused, it is NOT your fault. If you are harassed by the Church of Scientology for speaking out, that’s a crime. The more people who speak up, the safer it will be for Scientology’s children, the vulnerable members of the SeaOrg, and the community at large.
If you don’t know who to talk to, you can always reach out to me.
Fr. Robert P. Byrne – Priest in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For you true crime nerds out there, he was the family priest of Manson Family victim Steven Parent. I do not know whether or not he is alive.
Edgar D. Cahn – May or may not have been a priest in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Left the bulk of his estate to Loyola Marymount University.
cc: Ms. Bridgette Winslow, Assistant Dean of Academic Affairs, Title IX Coordinator
Dr. Seth Knox, President, Adrian College Association of Professors
The dam has broken: You can no longer blame a fifteen-year-old victim for the fact that one of your professors, Thomas Hodgman, preyed on me, sexually abused me, and lied about it—all while he was my high school teacher.
The blame is not mine to bear. It is his and it is yours – for condoning the molestation of children.
It is time for you to remove admitted sexual predator Thomas Hodgman from his employment at Adrian College.
I came forward in 2003 and filed a lawsuit against Thomas Hodgman, the Diocese of Orange, CA, and Mater Dei High School, where Hodgman—my high school choir teacher from 1986-1988—admitted to sexually abusing me and at least one other high school girl.
That lawsuit settled in 2005. As a part of that settlement, I received more than 200 pages of secret documents showing that Hodgman admitted to preying on me and at least one other girl. He knew he got me pregnant. He had been informed he gave me a sexually transmitted disease.
He used his high school choirs to gain access to vulnerable young girls and sexually abuse them.
For the 13 years since then, I have attempted to alert students, parents, and the public about what Hodgman has done. I have posted the once-secret documents online. I have contacted your office numerous times. What have you done?
With the recent scandals involving Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and other powerful men in media and Hollywood, the dam is breaking.
You can no longer turn a blind eye to what Hodgman did and say, “Times were different.” They weren’t.
You can’t blame the victim for a school that covered up abuse. You can no longer blame a 15-year old victim for that fact that her teacher groomed and sexually abused her and at least one of her friends.
Just because a man is talented and affable does not mean that he can assault, molest, sexually abuse, harass, or engage in criminal behavior with children in his care.
The time for victim-shaming is over. You can no longer cover-up Thomas Hodgman’s past. You must act.
Yes. Do a simple Google search on the Sugar’n Spice Photos of a 10-year-old Brooke Shields. You’ll read about the Playboy photos her mother approved and for which the photographer said the child felt “totally comfortable posing.” (That’s not comfort, BTW. That’s the product of grooming.)
Fortunately, the photos are censored.
Ask Corey Feldman. Ask alleged victims of Tyler Grasham, any of the alleged victims in the movie An Open Secret, (which, I am told, has a few secrets of its own), and the alleged victims of Michael Jackson.
Or the victims of Roman Polanski. He’s convicted, so I don’t have to call the victims “alleged.”
Ask any of the alleged under-aged girls passed around at the Playboy mansion. Or if Bill Cosby allegedly checked IDs.
This is just the surface of the problem.
Hollywood has been eating children alive for almost a century.
How do I know this? I am a student of history. Hollywood an institution – one that is powerful and glittery and offers children and their parents something better and more beautiful than anything else can:
Wealth. Fame. Immortality. Glory.
Hollywood gives the Average Joe the ability the go home and show all of the poor schmucks who hated him/her that s/he “made it.” Or even better—all of the yokels from the old neighborhood can see his/her kid on TV. Does it get any better than that?
It certainly doesn’t get any better for predators. For them, it’s a never-ending feast of children, hungry for fame—many of whom are supporting their families..
Hollywood eats its young.
Why do I know this?
I have been fighting institutional child sexual abuse for 15 years. A majority of the work that I do has been for victims in the Catholic Church. And I will help anyone who asks.
For years, people wondered why the clergy sex abuse/institutional sex abuse movement could never get a celebrity spokesperson.
I knew why. It was because many of the celebrities we wanted to be spokespeople were actually asking for help on the sly.
If they spoke out for clergy sex abuse victims, public school sex abuse victims, scouting victims, foster home sex abuse victims, or any institutional victim, they would have to speak out against the system that employed them—the system that put food on their table.
That was never going to happen. So strong, brave men and women told me and others no. They needed to work.
I understood. Not everyone can be a warrior.
Hollywood’s survivors always have a home. Those of us who understand institutional abuse will be here with open arms.
It’s the same in Hollywood. Survivors have to work and they have to eat. But they also have to heal. And after they heal, they learn to fight. And name names.
Hollywood will never be the same. And that is good. Very good.
Hollywood’s deafening silence this week in the case of Harvey Weinstein should be telling to everyone:
It tells us a story about power.
It tells us a story about morality.
It tells us the story of fame’s fickle friendship.
Power
Weinstein’s saga tells us that the true currency in Hollywood is power.
Until just a few days ago, Weinstein had it in spades. He hung out with the former president and Democratic presidential candidates. He decided who would become movie stars. He was a king maker. A power broker.
When the allegations made the news, he thought he could use his power to sue The New York Times (who ran the initial story about years of alleged sexual harassment) and to silence his board (whom he thought would accept his “non-apology apology” and let him come back to work in a few weeks).
But who looks at Ashley Judd and calls her a liar? And who looks at settlement after settlement, gag order after gag order, and says to themselves: all of these women are nuts?
Apparently, Hollywood does.
The people who stood next to Lady Gaga and Joe Biden at the Academy Awards and clapped and cried for victims of sexual assault are oddly silent today. The stars who made PSAs saying “It’s On Us,” are sitting around today saying, “Sorry Ashley, Rose McGowan, and the dozens of other women. This one’s on you. We need our jobs.”
No late night jokes. No SNL skits.
I guess it’s really not on them. It’s on the victims.
Bill Cosby and his PR team like to say that it was racism that lead to the attention that Hollywood and the media have given his accusers. I disagree. Cosby has no power in Hollywood anymore.
Jokes about pudding pops won’t get you blackballed from the business.
Harvey’s power is beginning to wane. We shall see.
***Update 6:53 pm: a few minutes after I wrote this original post, Harvey was fired. My take? The board knew what he was up to for years. They didn’t fire him because it was the right thing to do. They fired him because they had no other choice. Public shame will do that.
I came of age in the 60’s and 70’s, when all the rules about behavior and workplaces were different. That was the culture then.
Really? My dad sold operating room equipment in the 60s and 70s. He didn’t make anyone give him massages. Or watch him shower naked. The manager at local Sav-on who sold my sister and I ice cream cones didn’t require the trainees to come to his hotel room and watch him walk around naked.
What was Weinstein’s culture? The Manson Family (minus the murder part, I hope)? This is the kind of business leader that people are looking up to? This kind of behavior was never okay. Period.
Weinstein doesn’t care about what he did. He doesn’t think he was wrong. He’s just mad that he’s in trouble for it.
His is a world without morality.
The Fickle Friendship of Fame
When I came forward publicly as a survivor of sex abuse in the Catholic Church, I learned who my real friends were.
Weinstein’s accusers are learning that … to the extreme.
Where are Ashley Judd’s friends and supporters? Why aren’t the late night hosts standing up for her? Lena Dunham (not one of my favorite people) is at least saying something. Where are the other Hollywood power players?
I remember a few years ago when the Roman Polanski case was back in the news. His victim has asked that the charges be dropped—not because the incidents didn’t happen, but because she’s sick of the media circus.
Anjelica Huston said of finding Polanski with a 13-year-old girl in her house, “I thought nothing of it.”
A telling statement, don’t you think? What else has she seen and experienced to become so calloused? So cruel?
Why do we hail these people as artists? Perhaps I would be able to separate the artists from the individual if Hollywood were not constantly lecturing us on everything from our carbon footprint to the chad on our ballots.
But Hollywood doesn’t care about any of the victims. They just care about their next jobs.
What can you do?
Vote with your wallet when it comes to Hollywood products. Tell Ashley she’s strong and that you support her. Tell Rose McGowan, the women who were gag ordered, the news anchor, and every other Hollywood victim you know how sorry you are and that you won’t tolerate this anymore.
Stop the cycle of the abuse of power. Support women in Hollywood who push back.
