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Navarro Faculty’s formidable cheer squad will return to the mat on Jan. 12 when Netflix debuts the second season of their hit actuality sequence Cheer.
However a once-beloved member of the workforce is not going to be becoming a member of his teammates as they vie for one more championship title. As a substitute, Jeremiah “Jerry” Harris will probably be sitting inside a jail cell in Chicago.
Harris faces at the very least 30 years behind bars on expenses associated to youngster pornography and the sexual exploitation of 5 minors. Federal prosecutors declare Harris is a serial youngster predator who enticed boys as younger as 13 to ship him sexually express movies and images. (Harris pleaded not responsible to the seven expenses introduced in opposition to him.)
It doesn’t appear as if the 22-year-old has fairly grasped the severity of his state of affairs as he waits for a trial date to be set, as Navarro head cheerleading coach Monica Aldama admits within the new season that Harris had written her a letter the place he didn’t appear to have a care on this planet, daydreaming about his plans to change into a motivational speaker.
“It was onerous to learn,” Aldama confesses, including that she was caught off guard by his cheery tone. “His letter was so optimistic. Like there was not one adverse factor on this letter. I wish to be supportive. But I’m so disillusioned. I've all these feelings which are simply combating one another.”
Information of Harris’ arrest in 2020 was met with shock. Simply months earlier than, he’d emerged because the breakout star of the sequence. Viewers couldn’t assist however root for the workforce’s always-positive underdog, who regardless of his personal struggles, together with shedding his mom to most cancers on the age of 16, had at all times proven as much as apply with a smile and delivered motivational pep talks to his fellow squad members.
His recognition transitioned off-screen, the place Harris was signing offers left and proper. When the pandemic swept by way of the world in March 2020, Netflix tapped Harris to talk about psychological well being on its weekly Wanna Speak About It? social media sequence. He gave interviews to shiny magazines, racked up greater than 1 million followers on Instagram, moved into his own residence, interviewed A-listers for Ellen DeGeneres’ present on the Oscars, and even had Oprah come calling.
That each one got here crashing down when Harris was pulled out of his suburban residence in Naperville, Illinois, by FBI brokers in September 2020.
Federal brokers had begun trying into Harris a number of months earlier than his arrest after Texas mom Kristen had reached out to officers in misery about what she had come to study Harris’ alleged interactions together with her now 16-year-old twin sons Charlie and Sam. (The household’s final identify has been withheld to guard their identification, because the boys are alleged underage victims of sexual abuse.)
The then-13-year-olds, who're overtly homosexual cheerleaders, first met a 19-year-old Harris over social media in 2018. On the time, Harris was already well-known within the aggressive cheerleading world as an All-Star Cheer character and Cheer Athletics coach, and has been accused of utilizing his standing to his benefit.
Oprah Winfrey speaks with the celebrities of Netflix's Cheer (L-R) Monica Aldama, Jerry Harris, Gaby Butter, Lexi Brumback, TT Baker and Dillion Brandt throughout Oprah's 2020 Imaginative and prescient: Your Life in Focus Tour introduced by WW at American Airways Heart on February 15, 2020, in Dallas, Texas.
Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty
“Nearly instantly” after including the boys on social media Harris started requesting “booty pics,” regardless of understanding their age, in response to federal court docket paperwork and a $1 million civil go well with filed in opposition to Harris in Texas.
“Do it bare and take a video and present me,” Harris allegedly replied to a Snapchat story that Charlie posted in April 2020, the place the teenager confirmed off a sophisticated flexibility maneuver referred to as a “needle,” together with his fuzzy stuffed animal hanging from his bunk mattress within the background.
Harris’ urge for food for express pictures was unrelenting, federal prosecutors allege, claiming that in one FaceTime name with Charlie, Harris instructed him to “bend over extra” and present “your butthole.”
As a manipulation tactic, Harris is accused of threatening to unfriend the twins on social media in the event that they didn’t ship over nude images. In different instances, he would allegedly try and entice them with the promise of boosting their social media recognition with a put up from him, however provided that they despatched him the specific footage.
Harris even pursued the twins—significantly Charlie—offline, in response to court docket paperwork, hugging and groping the boys at numerous cheerleading competitions. Throughout one such occasion in Fort Price in February 2019, Harris allegedly pressured Charlie to return with him to a secluded toilet stall.
“Harris proceeded to sexually harass and molest [Charlie] and began demanding and begging [him] to carry out oral intercourse on Harris,” the civil go well with alleges. Charlie claimed he refused and rushed out of the lavatory after his brother and different teammates started texting as a result of he had been gone for thus lengthy.
Just a few months later, when each Charlie and Harris had been in Florida for an additional competitors, Harris propositioned Charlie once more for intercourse, in response to USA In the present day, which printed screenshots of the alleged dialog.
“Hey btw I discovered a spot for us to do stuff it’s really fairly good haha,” Harris allegedly texted the boy. When Charlie turned him down, saying “possibly one other time,” Harris responded, “There received’t be however it’s okay I nonetheless wanna hang around w you.”
In Feb. 2020, a month after Cheer debuted, Harris allegedly despatched one of many twins a Snapchat with a portion of his face exhibiting, writing, “Would you ever wish to [fuck]?”
“It was simply actually bizarre for me—particularly being the primary occasion that stuff has ever occurred to me,” Charlie advised USA In the present day. “I’ve by no means flirted with anybody earlier than, had a relationship with a boy earlier than. It was bizarre to me that that was my first one.”
“It was simply consuming me alive,” he added, admitting he suffered from nervousness and cried at college on account of Harris continually pressuring him. “It was simply making me so gross and uncomfortable. Each time I noticed his identify or one thing like that, I used to be simply cringing about it.”
The boys’ mom claimed she found what was happening in February 2020, uncovering the texts and a video Harris had allegedly despatched of himself masturbating.
At first, Kristen stated she felt sympathy for the Navarro cheerleader, having watched Cheer and understanding Harris’ household struggles. She had instructed her sons to not have any additional communication with Harris however modified her thoughts when she realized this was probably not an remoted occasion.
In a voluntary interview with federal prosecutors, Harris admitted to exchanging nude images and movies on Snapchat with round 15 different minors; having intercourse with a 15-year-old boy throughout a cheer occasion in 2019; and paying a teen for nude images, in response to court docket papers.
A 17-year-old claimed to officers that Harris had pestered him for nude images for 3 hours over Snapchat in 2020, and ultimately provided the boy money for the specific footage. The 17-year-old obtained the bare images from a prepared pal, who was additionally 17, and despatched them to Harris. As an indication of excellent religion, Harris despatched the boy a cost of $100 electronically, the felony criticism alleges.
Over the course of summer time 2020, Harris allegedly despatched the 17-year-old as much as $3,000 in change for nude images and Snapchat video calls, the place he reportedly instructed the teenager to “unfold his ass cheeks” and “present his butthole” for the digicam.
Though Harris was initially arrested on one youngster pornography cost relating to his alleged conduct with the twins, on account of info offered by the opposite minors, federal prosecutors hit Harris with recent expenses in December 2020.
He was charged with 4 counts of sexual exploitation of youngsters, one rely of receiving and making an attempt to obtain youngster pornography, one rely of touring with the try to have interaction in sexual conduct with a minor, and one rely of enticement.
Whereas his authorized workforce tried to influence the choose to launch Harris on bail, proposing a plan the place Harris can be below the watch of 4 “cheer mothers” whom he had met by way of the aggressive cheerleading world, prosecutors strongly opposed the bid.
They claimed in court docket papers that Harris had all of the indicators of being a “serial youngster predator” and there was a excessive threat that he would abuse minors if he was launched. To bolster their argument, they alleged that earlier than his arrest, Harris was in some way alerted that he was below investigation and had destroyed his cellphone. But simply weeks later, he obtained a brand new cellphone with the intent to “victimize minor boys,” in response to court docket paperwork.
A choose sided with prosecutors and Harris stays in jail as he awaits a trial date.
Issues had been made worse for Cheer when two further males who had been additionally featured on the present had been arrested on the identical day in February 2021. Mitchell Ryan, 24, confronted expenses of aggravated sexual assault of a kid stemming from an incident in July 2020. A grand jury declined to indict Ryan on the costs in September, a lot to the frustration of the accuser’s household.
In the meantime, Robert Joseph Scianna Jr., who made a short look on the present and was by no means a Navarro cheerleader, was charged in Virginia with taking indecent liberties with a toddler and use of an digital communication machine to solicit intercourse. Scianna pleaded responsible to the cost in August and is awaiting sentencing.
Netflix
When Netflix introduced it was giving Cheer a second season, the rapid query was the way it was going to deal with Harris’ departure from the workforce. The streaming large ended up devoting a complete episode to the state of affairs, with emotional interviews from Harris’ former teammates, together with La’Darius Marshall and Gabi Butler, coach Aldama, and even accusers Charlie and Sam.
“I'd have snatched him up if I'd have ever recognized about any of these items,” Marshall stated. “I really feel like it might have been worse than him going to jail. I don’t care how well-known you might be. I don’t care about how a lot cash you bought, I don’t care how a lot folks love you—that doesn’t provide the proper to do one thing like this, particularly when one in every of your greatest pals you realize went by way of one thing like that.”
Whereas Butler, 23, professed that she was “heartbroken” by the allegations, she admitted that she couldn’t abandon her pal. “I can’t and I received’t,” Butler stated. “I can’t flip my again on him as a result of he was there once I wanted him.”
Netflix itself has stayed largely quiet on the matter, issuing a lone assertion after Harris’ arrest, and declined to touch upon the 2 different males’s arrests final February. “Like everybody we're shocked by this information,” an organization spokesperson stated on the time. “Any abuse of minors is a horrible crime, and we respect the authorized course of.”
As for Aldama, who tearfully stated Harris was like a toddler to her, she sees virtually no hope for his state of affairs. “It’s unhappy and it makes me tear up each time I give it some thought,” she stated.