Jerry Harris from the favored Netflix cheerleading collection, “Cheer,” was sentenced to 12 years in federal jail Wednesday on a number of fees, together with soliciting intercourse from minors and receiving baby pornography.
As well as, US District Choose Manish Shah, ordered that the sentence be adopted by eight years of court-supervised launch.
“The sentence is 12 years in jail, to be adopted by eight years of court-supervised launch,” Joseph D. Fitzpatrick, Assistant US Legal professional of the Northern District of Illinois, confirmed to Fox Information Digital.
Harris was indicted in 2020 on seven counts of receiving and trying to obtain baby pornography, and of persuading minors to have interaction in sexual contact between August 2017 to August 2020.
NETFLIX ‘CHEER’ STAR JERRY HARRIS CHARGED WITH PRODUCTION OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
Shah informed Harris to think about the sentence an “expression of the seriousness of your crimes, tempered with some hope that each one shouldn’t be misplaced for you or to your victims, and that sooner or later some therapeutic can happen.”
Harris, 22, of suburban Naperville, pleaded responsible earlier this 12 months to at least one depend every of receiving baby pornography and touring with the intention to have interaction in unlawful sexual conduct.
Prosecutors had requested a federal decide to sentence Harris to fifteen years in jail for coercing teenage boys to ship him obscene pictures and movies of themselves and soliciting intercourse from minors at cheerleading competitions. Harris’ attorneys had been searching for a sentence of six years.
Earlier than studying his sentence, Harris apologized to his victims, saying, “I’m deeply sorry for all of the trauma my abuse has induced you. I pray deep down that your struggling involves an finish.”
“I am not an evil particular person,” Harris stated. “I am nonetheless studying who I’m and what my objective is.”
Harris has been in custody at a federal detention facility.
‘CHEER’ STAR JERRY HARRIS PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO FELONIES IN CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CASE
Sarah Klein, an lawyer for 2 of the victims, issued a press release saying Harris’ guilt was “firmly established.”
“The sentence he obtained displays the severity of his crimes and the lifetime of ache his victims will undergo,” Klein stated.
Harris was arrested in September 2020 on a cost of manufacturing of kid pornography. Prosecutors alleged on the time that he solicited movies and pictures from two 14-year-old brothers.
In keeping with a grievance, federal prosecutors stated that Harris admitted to repeatedly asking a minor teen for pornographic movies and pictures between December 2018 and March 2020.
Then in December of that 12 months, he was indicted on extra fees alleging misconduct in Illinois, Florida and Texas. In keeping with the indictment, Harris allegedly solicited intercourse from minors at cheerleading competitions and satisfied teenage boys to ship him obscene images and movies of themselves.
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Harris admitted to FBI brokers to asking a teenage boy to ship him lewd images of himself, and to requesting baby pornography on Snapchat from no less than 10 to fifteen others he knew to be minors, in response to the indictment.
Protection attorneys, in asking {that a} six-year sentence be adopted by eight years of supervised launch, described Harris as “each victimizer and sufferer,” saying he was sexually assaulted himself when he was a baby.
“The trauma he skilled as a baby normalized his skewed model of what he understood to be applicable relationships. Nobody was there to face up for him when he was sexually assaulted as a minor. He’s grateful that’s not the case for his victims on this case, to whom he’s profoundly remorseful,” protection attorneys wrote.
Federal prosecutors acknowledged the actor’s traumatic childhood was a mitigating consider his crimes, however stated “whereas Harris’s childhood was very tough, it was not a clean verify to commit intercourse offenses in opposition to minors.”
“Cheer” was an enormous success when it was launched in January 2020, and Harris turned wildly fashionable for his upbeat perspective and his encouraging “mat discuss.” Harris even interviewed celebrities on the pink carpet on the Academy Awards for “The Ellen DeGeneres Present.”
The docuseries follows the aggressive cheerleading squad from Navarro School in Corsicana, Texas.
Fox Information’ Larry Fink and the Related Press contributed to this report