The star of the television series “That ’70s Show” and “The Ranch” was found guilty on two counts of rape between 2001 and 2003, but the jury in the Los Angeles court failed to agree on a third count of rape .
This was the second rape trial Masterson has faced, after the previous trial was declared a mistrial in November because another jury failed to reach a unanimous decision.
Masterson, 47, was taken into custody after the verdict was read.
The actor is now awaiting his sentence, and could face 30 years to life in prison.
Masterson, affiliated with Scientology, rose to fame with the 1998 premiere of the series “That ’70s Show,” in which he played Steven Hyde and shared the screen with Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher.
He worked with Kutcher again on Netflix’s “The Ranch” but was fired in 2017 and his character was removed from the plot, after Los Angeles police confirmed they were investigating multiple rape allegations against him.
At the time, prosecutors dropped two other sexual assault cases against Masterson for lack of evidence.
During closing arguments in the trial in early May, prosecutors said Masterson “drugged and raped every one of these victims” and asked the jury to “hold him accountable for what he’s done.”
The three whistleblowers were also part of the Church of Scientology at the time, and it was through this secretive group that Masterson met them.
Two of them said that church authorities urged them not to contact the police.
Masterson’s lawyers questioned in their closing arguments that there was “a lot of talk about Scientology,” suggesting that bias against the church might have motivated the decision.