That 70s Show actor Danny Masterson was transferred to a male-only maximum-security prison this week that has housed several notorious inmates.
Masterson was initially booked into a California state prison–North Kern State–three months after he was found guilty of raping two women and sentenced to 30 years for his crimes.
Prison records show Masterson has moved from North Kern, in Delano, California, to Corcoran State Prison, a half-an-hour drive away in San Joaquin Valley.
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A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) confirmed to The Daily Beast that Masterson was transferred on Jan. 29.
CDCR explained that it operates with a “reception center” process, where inmates start at “reception centers for processing and assessment and then are sent to their longer-term placement.” North Kern is one of those centers.
The prison, which opened in 1988, is notable for a variety of high-profile criminals it has housed, both past and present.
Charles Manson lived in the protective housing unit at Corcoran from 1989 until his death in 2017. The unit houses inmates whose safety would be endangered by general population housing, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Sirhan Sirhan, who was convicted for the assassination of U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and handed a life sentence, also lived in the protective housing unit in two stints between 1992 until 2013, before he was moved to another facility.
Serial killer Rodney James Alcala, known as the “Dating Game Killer” due to his appearance on the television show The Dating Game in 1978 and who has been compared to Ted Bundy for the five murders he committed between 1977 and 1979, died while on death row at the prison in 2021.
Currently, the prison houses David Turpin, who along with his wife Louise, pleaded guilty in 2019 for torturing and abusing their children for years in a case dubbed the “house of horrors.”
Serial killers John Floyd Thomas Jr. and Horace Van Vaultz are also housed in the prison, as well as Brandon Pitt, who murdered his parents, Janet and David “Scott” Pettit in Modesto, California in August 2013.
Masterson was found guilty of two counts of rape in a May 2023 retrial and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He is eligible for parole in June 2042, according to prison records.
Last week, a Superior Court judge in Los Angeles denied a bail request by Masterson's attorneys, citing concerns he could skip town, according to Deadline.
“If defendant’s conviction and sentence are upheld on appeal, he will likely remain in custody for decades and perhaps the rest of his life,” wrote Judge Charlaine Olmedo.
“In light of the fact that defendant has no wife to go home to, defendant now has every incentive to flee and little reason to return to state prison to serve out the remainder of his lengthy sentence should his appeal be unsuccessful,” the judge said, referencing his recent divorce, filed by ex-wife Bijou Phillips after the guilty verdict.
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