Biden Surrogate Sentenced to 12 Years in Prison for Child Sex Abuse
Netflix star Jerry Harris jailed for child pornography and soliciting sex from minors
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Biden surrogate Jerry Harris has been sentenced to 12 years in prison after being convicted of child pornography charges and sexually abusing minors.
Harris, star of Oprah Winfrey's Netflix show "Cheer," was found guilty of child sex abuse charges after he was caught using his position to pray to children.
Prosecutors argued that Harris used “his status as a competitive cheerleader, his social media persona" to rape children.
They added that he "eventually [used] his celebrity and money, to persuade and entice” underage victims.
After being released from prison, Harris will have eight additional years of supervised release.
Harris was initially raided by the FBI in September 2020.
He was caught after allegations emerged against him by 14-year-old twin brothers.
The boys provided USA Today with conversations that they had with Harris.
They showed Harris had sent messages explicitly requesting nude photos or sex.
In one of the messages, Harris responded to a photo of the teen stretching his leg above his head.
“Do it naked and take a video and show me,” Harris wrote, with a winking emoji.
The Netflix alum admitted to repeatedly harassing a minor for graphic sexual images between December 2018 and March 2020.
He was subsequently indicted on similar charges in Illinois, Florida, and Texas.
Fox 5 reports:
“Harris admitted to FBI agents to asking a teenage boy to send him lewd photographs of himself, and to requesting child pornography on Snapchat from at least 10 to 15 others he knew to be minors, according to the indictment.”
The Cheer docuseries followed a cheerleading team working to make it to the National Cheerleading Championship.
During the 2020 presidential election, he filmed a short video with Joe Biden.
In the video, he encourages young black voters to turn out on Election Day and vote for Democrats.
