California
Appeals court upholds actor Danny Masterson’s rape convictions
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California appeals court on Tuesday upheld actor Danny Masterson’s convictions and long prison sentence for raping two women at his home in 2003.
In an 89-page ruling, the three-judge panel unanimously found that the “That ‘70s Show” actor had failed to demonstrate that the lower court made errors that would warrant granting him a new trial.
The panel also rejected a petition filed by Masterson that claimed ineffective assistance of counsel.
Masterson’s first trial ended with a deadlocked jury in 2022, but at his retrial the following year, he was convicted of raping two women. He was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
His attorneys said in an emailed statement Tuesday that they would seek review at the California Supreme Court.
Among the claims that the court rejected were that Masterson’s convictions violated the 10-year statute of limitations for forcible rape, as the statute does not apply where there are multiple victims; that the trial court excluded evidence in his favor; and that the trial court exhibited bias against his religion.
Masterson is a prominent member of the Church of Scientology, and his accusers are former members who said they grew disillusioned with the institution after they were assaulted. They said church officials told them what had happened to them was not rape, and that its policies prevented them from going to police. The church vehemently denied having any such policy.
Masterson, 50, has been serving his sentence at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. He will not be eligible for parole for more than 20 years.
Masterson starred with Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace in “That ‘70s Show” from 1998 until 2006. He had reunited with Kutcher on the 2016 Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” but he was written off the show after the allegations surfaced.
London
Russell Brand denies all charges as he takes stand at his rape and sex assault trial
LONDON (AP) — Actor-comedian Russell Brand said allegations of sexual misconduct have had a “devastating” impact on his life, as he testified in court Wednesday at his trial on charges of rape and sexual assault.
Brand entered Southwark Crown Court alongside his wife, Laura Gallacher, telling reporters that “today is the day for truth and justice.”
Brand, 51, stood in the witness box and took the oath, then gave his full name: Russell Edward Brand. He answered “no” to each of the charges: three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault.
Questioned by his lawyer, Ian Winter, Brand said the allegations had a “devastating” impact, with friends and colleagues abandoning him. He said no one with relevant evidence had been willing to testify in court on his behalf.
“My entire life has been consumed by these events, these allegations, these accusations,” he said.
Brand said he even was forbidden from staying with his baby son in hospital after anonymous allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him in a newspaper and a TV documentary in 2023.
“The reason given by Great Ormond Street Hospital when my son was receiving open heart surgery and subsequent treatment was due to the material published,” he said.
Over the past two weeks of the trial, prosecutors have set out their case and the jury heard from six women who accuse Brand of sexual misconduct between 1999 and 2009.
Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones told jurors that Brand was “ruthless, he was calculating, he was manipulative. And, the prosecution say, he was a sexual predator.”
As the defense attorney asked Brand about each of the alleged incidents, which his accusers said took place in locations including a hotel room, the offices of MTV and the toilet of a London bar, he denied forcing women to do anything against their will.
“Consent is fundamental, essential, necessary, and indeed in many ways more important than sex itself,” Brand said.
Known for risqué stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol, Brand rose to prominence in the early 2000s, hosting television programs and his own BBC radio show. He appeared in Hollywood films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek” and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry.
In recent years he has moved away from mainstream media, relocated to Florida and built a large online following with videos mixing wellness, conspiracy theories and discussions of his religious devotion.
California
Federal judge rules top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles isn’t legally serving
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles.
The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support.
Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote.
The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. Essayli said he doesn’t agree with the court’s order. He said the president and Attorney General “have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.”
“Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then,” he said in a statement.
The former state lawmaker was appointed by the Trump administration last year to serve as Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles. Just before the 120-day mark, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him as First Assistant U.S. Attorney.
But in October 2025, Seabright disqualified Essayli from overseeing several criminal cases, concluding he had stayed in the temporary job longer than allowed by law. He was allowed to continue to serve as a First Assistant U.S. attorney.
The administration never appointed another acting U.S. attorney, effectively making Essayli the top prosecutor. He’s been a face of the administration’s sparring with California on everything from alleged health care fraud to recent claims of widespread noncitizen voting. California has pushed back on federal efforts to prevent election officials from counting ballots of up to 20,000 people the Trump administration suspects are not U.S. citizens.
On Tuesday, Seabright wrote that Essayli’s status faced new questions following an August appeals court ruling in a similar case. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Sigal Chattah, the Trump administration’s initial pick for U.S. attorney in Nevada, was unlawfully appointed to lead federal prosecutions in the state.
Seabright wrote that Bondi’s appointment of Essayli as a special attorney and designation of him as the FAUSA “is identical” to her appointment of Chattah in the same roles.
Despite a new designation by U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche that cut a few of Essayli’s duties, the judge said that “nothing in the revised designation order materially distinguishes it from the Chattah designation order deemed improper in” the appeals court ruling.
Judges have found a number of interim U.S. attorneys installed by the administration are unlawfully serving in their positions.
A judge in New Jersey last year disqualified acting U.S. attorney Alina Habba and in January a judge ruled that John Sarcone was not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.
Essayli is a former federal prosecutor and Republican state lawmaker. In the Legislature, he took up conservative causes and criticized the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. He has been outspoken against California policies to protect immigrants living in the country illegally, and he has aggressively prosecuted people who protest Trump’s ramped up immigration enforcement across Southern California.
Louisiana
Lawyers for RJ Luis Jr. ask judge to block SEC from intervening to keep him off LSU’s roster
Lawyers for RJ Luis Jr., who was briefly under contract with two NBA teams in 2025 but never played in a game, are asking a Louisiana judge to block the Southeastern Conference from punishing LSU if Luis is added to the Tigers’ roster.
The request was included in a petition filed Tuesday in state district court in East Baton Rouge Parish, where Judge Ronald R. Johnson in late August granted a preliminary injunction against the NCAA, which has argued that Luis is ineligible to play.
An SEC spokesman said Tuesday that the conference had no immediate comment on the new filing. The SEC already has accused LSU in a related federal case of exhibiting an “ongoing defiance of the conference’s professionalism rules” by trying to add Luis to its roster.
The SEC has a long-established rule forbidding teams from adding players with major professional experience to their rosters. In September, the conference announced updated enforcement provisions to that rule, stating that the commissioner had the power to suspend coaches, fine universities up to half of a sport’s budget and restrict a member university’s voting privileges on conference matters.
Under threat of being voted out of the SEC by fellow league members, LSU elected in early September not to add to its football roster two players who’d spent part of the offseason with NFL clubs before being recruited back to college by Tigers first-year coach Lane Kiffin.
Those players — Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris — had played for Kiffin at Mississippi. During Week 1 of the season, they were granted a preliminary injunction against the NCAA and SEC by another state judge in Baton Rouge.
That case led the SEC to file a federal case alleging that LSU, by attempting to circumvent SEC rules, was violating the league’s First Amendment right to freedom of association. In other words, the SEC essentially argued it has the right to enforce rules governing competition among members who all chose to join the league.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has mocked the SEC for taking that position, calling its federal case “garbage.” She has filed briefs supporting LSU and urging dismissal of the case, in which she has since been named as a defendant.
The attorneys who filed Thursday’s petition in state court in Louisiana — Elliot Abrams of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Tony Clayton of Baton Rouge — represent only Luis. They do not represent LSU, and have asked the judge to also block LSU from following any SEC directives that would bar Luis from playing.
“LSU has not rostered Mr. Luis, and the reason it has given is the Conference’s protocols,” Luis’ petition states. “This court enjoined the NCAA, and everyone acting in concert or participation with it, from keeping RJ Luis Jr. off the floor at LSU this season, directly or indirectly. The Southeastern Conference’s policy is what keeps him off the floor now.”
Luis, the 2025 Big East Player of the Year with St. John’s, played three seasons of college basketball with two teams before declaring for the 2025 NBA draft.
He went undrafted, but briefly was under contract with Utah and Boston. Will Wade, hired last spring to coach LSU for the second time, recruited Luis to return to college.
The NCAA balked at allowing Luis to regain his eligibility because he’d elected to leave college for the NBA and never followed NCAA protocols for retaining eligibility by withdrawing from the NBA draft.
Appeals court upholds actor Danny Masterson’s rape convictions
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California appeals court on Tuesday upheld actor Danny Masterson’s convictions and long prison sentence for raping two women at his home in 2003.
In an 89-page ruling, the three-judge panel unanimously found that the “That ‘70s Show” actor had failed to demonstrate that the lower court made errors that would warrant granting him a new trial.
The panel also rejected a petition filed by Masterson that claimed ineffective assistance of counsel.
Masterson’s first trial ended with a deadlocked jury in 2022, but at his retrial the following year, he was convicted of raping two women. He was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
His attorneys said in an emailed statement Tuesday that they would seek review at the California Supreme Court.
Among the claims that the court rejected were that Masterson’s convictions violated the 10-year statute of limitations for forcible rape, as the statute does not apply where there are multiple victims; that the trial court excluded evidence in his favor; and that the trial court exhibited bias against his religion.
Masterson is a prominent member of the Church of Scientology, and his accusers are former members who said they grew disillusioned with the institution after they were assaulted. They said church officials told them what had happened to them was not rape, and that its policies prevented them from going to police. The church vehemently denied having any such policy.
Masterson, 50, has been serving his sentence at the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo. He will not be eligible for parole for more than 20 years.
Masterson starred with Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis and Topher Grace in “That ‘70s Show” from 1998 until 2006. He had reunited with Kutcher on the 2016 Netflix comedy “The Ranch,” but he was written off the show after the allegations surfaced.
London
Russell Brand denies all charges as he takes stand at his rape and sex assault trial
LONDON (AP) — Actor-comedian Russell Brand said allegations of sexual misconduct have had a “devastating” impact on his life, as he testified in court Wednesday at his trial on charges of rape and sexual assault.
Brand entered Southwark Crown Court alongside his wife, Laura Gallacher, telling reporters that “today is the day for truth and justice.”
Brand, 51, stood in the witness box and took the oath, then gave his full name: Russell Edward Brand. He answered “no” to each of the charges: three counts of rape, three counts of sexual assault and one count of attempted indecent assault.
Questioned by his lawyer, Ian Winter, Brand said the allegations had a “devastating” impact, with friends and colleagues abandoning him. He said no one with relevant evidence had been willing to testify in court on his behalf.
“My entire life has been consumed by these events, these allegations, these accusations,” he said.
Brand said he even was forbidden from staying with his baby son in hospital after anonymous allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him in a newspaper and a TV documentary in 2023.
“The reason given by Great Ormond Street Hospital when my son was receiving open heart surgery and subsequent treatment was due to the material published,” he said.
Over the past two weeks of the trial, prosecutors have set out their case and the jury heard from six women who accuse Brand of sexual misconduct between 1999 and 2009.
Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones told jurors that Brand was “ruthless, he was calculating, he was manipulative. And, the prosecution say, he was a sexual predator.”
As the defense attorney asked Brand about each of the alleged incidents, which his accusers said took place in locations including a hotel room, the offices of MTV and the toilet of a London bar, he denied forcing women to do anything against their will.
“Consent is fundamental, essential, necessary, and indeed in many ways more important than sex itself,” Brand said.
Known for risqué stand-up routines and battles with drugs and alcohol, Brand rose to prominence in the early 2000s, hosting television programs and his own BBC radio show. He appeared in Hollywood films including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Get Him to the Greek” and was briefly married to pop star Katy Perry.
In recent years he has moved away from mainstream media, relocated to Florida and built a large online following with videos mixing wellness, conspiracy theories and discussions of his religious devotion.
California
Federal judge rules top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles isn’t legally serving
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Republican Bill Essayli is not legally serving as the top U.S. prosecutor in Los Angeles.
The ruling is the latest roadblock to the Trump administration’s effort to extend handpicked acting U.S. attorneys beyond the 120-day limit set by federal law. The strategy was designed to bypass confirmation by the U.S. Senate — something that generally requires a degree of bipartisan support.
Essayli “is unlawfully serving as a ‘de facto’ United States Attorney,” U.S. District Judge J. Michael Seabright wrote.
The order won’t take effect until the court rules on the government’s motion for a stay pending appeal. Essayli said he doesn’t agree with the court’s order. He said the president and Attorney General “have every right to select supervisors within the Justice Department.”
“Ultimately, this question will be decided by the Supreme Court, and I look forward to serving in my current role until then,” he said in a statement.
The former state lawmaker was appointed by the Trump administration last year to serve as Acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles. Just before the 120-day mark, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed him as First Assistant U.S. Attorney.
But in October 2025, Seabright disqualified Essayli from overseeing several criminal cases, concluding he had stayed in the temporary job longer than allowed by law. He was allowed to continue to serve as a First Assistant U.S. attorney.
The administration never appointed another acting U.S. attorney, effectively making Essayli the top prosecutor. He’s been a face of the administration’s sparring with California on everything from alleged health care fraud to recent claims of widespread noncitizen voting. California has pushed back on federal efforts to prevent election officials from counting ballots of up to 20,000 people the Trump administration suspects are not U.S. citizens.
On Tuesday, Seabright wrote that Essayli’s status faced new questions following an August appeals court ruling in a similar case. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that Sigal Chattah, the Trump administration’s initial pick for U.S. attorney in Nevada, was unlawfully appointed to lead federal prosecutions in the state.
Seabright wrote that Bondi’s appointment of Essayli as a special attorney and designation of him as the FAUSA “is identical” to her appointment of Chattah in the same roles.
Despite a new designation by U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche that cut a few of Essayli’s duties, the judge said that “nothing in the revised designation order materially distinguishes it from the Chattah designation order deemed improper in” the appeals court ruling.
Judges have found a number of interim U.S. attorneys installed by the administration are unlawfully serving in their positions.
A judge in New Jersey last year disqualified acting U.S. attorney Alina Habba and in January a judge ruled that John Sarcone was not lawfully serving as acting U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York.
Essayli is a former federal prosecutor and Republican state lawmaker. In the Legislature, he took up conservative causes and criticized the state’s COVID-19 restrictions. He has been outspoken against California policies to protect immigrants living in the country illegally, and he has aggressively prosecuted people who protest Trump’s ramped up immigration enforcement across Southern California.
Louisiana
Lawyers for RJ Luis Jr. ask judge to block SEC from intervening to keep him off LSU’s roster
Lawyers for RJ Luis Jr., who was briefly under contract with two NBA teams in 2025 but never played in a game, are asking a Louisiana judge to block the Southeastern Conference from punishing LSU if Luis is added to the Tigers’ roster.
The request was included in a petition filed Tuesday in state district court in East Baton Rouge Parish, where Judge Ronald R. Johnson in late August granted a preliminary injunction against the NCAA, which has argued that Luis is ineligible to play.
An SEC spokesman said Tuesday that the conference had no immediate comment on the new filing. The SEC already has accused LSU in a related federal case of exhibiting an “ongoing defiance of the conference’s professionalism rules” by trying to add Luis to its roster.
The SEC has a long-established rule forbidding teams from adding players with major professional experience to their rosters. In September, the conference announced updated enforcement provisions to that rule, stating that the commissioner had the power to suspend coaches, fine universities up to half of a sport’s budget and restrict a member university’s voting privileges on conference matters.
Under threat of being voted out of the SEC by fellow league members, LSU elected in early September not to add to its football roster two players who’d spent part of the offseason with NFL clubs before being recruited back to college by Tigers first-year coach Lane Kiffin.
Those players — Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris — had played for Kiffin at Mississippi. During Week 1 of the season, they were granted a preliminary injunction against the NCAA and SEC by another state judge in Baton Rouge.
That case led the SEC to file a federal case alleging that LSU, by attempting to circumvent SEC rules, was violating the league’s First Amendment right to freedom of association. In other words, the SEC essentially argued it has the right to enforce rules governing competition among members who all chose to join the league.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill has mocked the SEC for taking that position, calling its federal case “garbage.” She has filed briefs supporting LSU and urging dismissal of the case, in which she has since been named as a defendant.
The attorneys who filed Thursday’s petition in state court in Louisiana — Elliot Abrams of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Tony Clayton of Baton Rouge — represent only Luis. They do not represent LSU, and have asked the judge to also block LSU from following any SEC directives that would bar Luis from playing.
“LSU has not rostered Mr. Luis, and the reason it has given is the Conference’s protocols,” Luis’ petition states. “This court enjoined the NCAA, and everyone acting in concert or participation with it, from keeping RJ Luis Jr. off the floor at LSU this season, directly or indirectly. The Southeastern Conference’s policy is what keeps him off the floor now.”
Luis, the 2025 Big East Player of the Year with St. John’s, played three seasons of college basketball with two teams before declaring for the 2025 NBA draft.
He went undrafted, but briefly was under contract with Utah and Boston. Will Wade, hired last spring to coach LSU for the second time, recruited Luis to return to college.
The NCAA balked at allowing Luis to regain his eligibility because he’d elected to leave college for the NBA and never followed NCAA protocols for retaining eligibility by withdrawing from the NBA draft.
