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Everyone is losing their minds about this. And they are right to.
But also?
This is incredibly common in court cases. These kinds of letters can make a huge difference during sentencing. To put it in context, a cousin got arrested for going on a burglary spree. Nothing violent but he was a real piece of shit. He and his lawyer basically asked everyone he had ever had a positive interaction with to write letters. I tentatively agreed because of his mother but they sent my letter back because I wasn't advocating strong enough. Because if you think someone "deserves" the minimum sentence? You ask for them to be (not the right word but) exonerated. And so forth.
Similarly, we were asked to write these months before the trial actually began. They didn't end up using my letter, but they requested the people whose letters they were going to use to attend the trial and they pretended it was written between conviction and sentencing. When you have no defense whatsoever, you do what you can to try and get leniency.
Personally? I think enough of this was "known" for the past few decades that I think anyone who would write a letter for masterson (aside from maybe his family of deranged cultists) are right assholes (they are assholes for different reasons). But I would take the "they wrote these after hearing the testimony of the victims" with a grain of salt. Same with the strength of what they are asking for. Doesn't make it right, but is still good to have context. Especially in the case of celebrities, there are good odds they had their publicists write these when they were asked a few years back and forgot about them.
And I'll just add on. scientology has lost a LOT of its power over the past decade or so and is basically held up by the will of tom cruise running around on camera. But they still have a LOT of influence in hollywood and masterson and his family have already been known to shitlist people who cross them (including apparently their own father?). I doubt anyone in the core cast and crew would need to worry about that at this point, but I can definitely see some of the names on the list being in that space of "Well, I either write a letter or don't work for a decade". Doesn't stop them from being an asshole, but does impact how much of an asshole they are (irony!).
Your experience and insight are incredibly valuable here. Thank you.