Actor and active Scientologist Danny Masterson has been charged with forcibly raping three women, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced on Wednesday.

Masterson, 44, faces charges on three separate incidents that occurred between 2001 and 2003. A news release from District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office only stated that two of the women were 23, one was 28 and that he allegedly raped all three of them in his Hollywood Hills home.

If found guilty, the That ’70s Show actor faces a possible maximum sentence of 45 years to life in state prison.

The charges come after four women filed sexual assault allegations against Masterson in 2017, claiming he’d raped them years earlier. In 2019, four of those women sued Masterson, the Church of Scientology and church leader David Miscavige, accusing the organisation of stalking and intimidating them and attempting to obstruct justice as Los Angeles officials were investigating the claims. 

The charges announced Wednesday are the first he’s faced since police began investigating the rape allegations.

Masterson and the Church of Scientology, which is known to be fiercely protective of its members and defensive against any accusations, deny all of the claims. 

Lacey’s office reviewed two other sexual assault charges against Masterson and declined to proceed with charges on them, “one for insufficient evidence and the other based upon the statute of limitations for the crime alleged,” the news release said.