CHICAGO –
A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced Jerry Harris, a former star of the Netflix documentary series “Cheer,” to 12 years in prison for forcing teenagers to send him indecent photos and videos of themselves and soliciting sex from minors during cheerleading competitions.
U.S. District Judge Manish Shah also ordered that the sentence be followed by eight years of supervised release.
Shah told Harris to consider the sentence “an expression of the seriousness of your crimes tempered with some hope that all is not lost for you or your victims and that some healing may occur in the future.”
Harris, 22, of suburban Naperville, pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count each of obtaining child pornography and traveling with intent to engage in unlawful sexual conduct.
A prosecutor asked for a sentence of 15 years followed by 10 years of supervised release, while Harris’ attorneys asked for a sentence of six years and eight years of supervised release.
Before learning his sentence, Harris apologized to his victims, saying: “I am deeply sorry for all the trauma my abuse has caused you. Deep down I pray for your suffering to end.’
“I’m not an evil person,” Harris said. “I’m still learning who I am and what my purpose is.”
Harris was being held at a federal detention center.
Sarah Klein, an attorney for two of the victims, issued a statement saying Harris’ guilt was “firmly established.”
“The sentence he received reflects the severity of his crimes and the pain his victims will endure for a lifetime,” Klein said.
Harris was arrested in September 2020 on charges of manufacturing child pornography. At the time, prosecutors alleged that he requested videos and images from two 14-year-old brothers.
According to a complaint, federal prosecutors said Harris admitted to repeatedly soliciting pornographic videos and images from a minor teenager between December 2018 and March 2020.
Then, in December of that year, he was charged with more misconduct in Illinois, Florida and Texas. According to the indictment, Harris allegedly solicited sex from minors at cheerleading competitions and persuaded teenagers to send him indecent photos and videos of themselves.
Harris admitted to FBI agents that he asked a teenager to send him indecent photos of herself and that he requested child pornography on Snapchat from at least 10 to 15 others he knew to be minors, according to the indictment.
“Cheer” was a huge success when it was released in January 2020, and Harris became extremely popular for his upbeat attitude and encouraging “mat talk.” Harris even interviewed celebrities on the Oscars red carpet for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
The docu-series follows the competitive cheerleading squad from Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas.
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