A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced Jerry Harris, the former star of the Netflix docuseries “Cheer,” to 12 years in prison for forcing teenage boys to send him lewd photos and videos of themselves and soliciting sex from minors at cheerleading competitions. U.S. District Judge Manish Shah also ordered the sentence to be followed by eight years of supervised release. Shah told Harris to view the sentence as “an expression of the seriousness of your crimes, with some hope that all is not lost for you or your victims and that some healing may come in the future.” Harris, 22, of suburban Naperville, pleaded guilty earlier this year to receiving child pornography and traveling for the purpose of unlawful sexual conduct. A prosecutor asked for a sentence of 15 years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release, while Harris’ lawyers asked for a sentence of 6 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. I pray deep down that your suffering will end.” “I’m not a bad person,” Harris said. “I’m still learning who I am and what my purpose is.” Harris is being held at a federal detention center. Sarah Klein, a lawyer for two of the victims, issued a statement saying Harris’ guilt had been “firmly proven.” “The sentence he received reflects the seriousness of his crimes and the pain of life his victims will experience,” Klein said. Harris was arrested in September 2020 on charges of producing child pornography. Prosecutors alleged at the time 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 an underage teenager between December 2018 and March 2020. Then, in December of that year, he was indicted on more charges alleging misconduct in Illinois, Florida and Texas. According to the indictment, Harris allegedly solicited sex from minors at cheerleading competitions and convinced the teenage boys to send him lewd photos and videos of themselves. Harris admitted to FBI agents that he asked a teenage boy to send him lewd photos of himself 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 motivational ‘mat speech’. Harris even interviewed celebrities on the red carpet at the Academy Awards for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” The documentary follows the competitive cheerleading squad from Navarro College in Corsicana, Texas.
