Free Republic

A star of a Netflix series about young cheerleaders was sentenced on July 6 to 12 years in prison. Jerry Harris, 22, was ordered imprisoned for 12 years, followed by eight years of supervised release. U.S. Judge Manish Shah, an Obama appointee, handed down the sentence in federal court in Chicago. Harris, a surrogate for then-candidate Joe Biden, was arrested in 2020 after authorities said he sent explicit videos and photographs to a young boy and solicited explicit materials from the male. Pleaded Guilty Harris pleaded guilty in February to one count of receipt of child pornography and one count...

A former Chicago police commander once considered a rising star in the department was spared federal prison Tuesday for pocketing more than $360,000 in Social Security payments intended for his mother that he continued to collect for nearly 25 years after her death. U.S. District Judge Manish Shah sentenced Kenneth Johnson to two years of probation and ordered him to serve the first six months in community confinement, likely at the Salvation Army. . In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah said Johnson’s decision to betray the public’s trust was “infuriating.” “How many times (as a police...