Reality TV star arrested in connection with alleged sexual conduct with an animal
Tony McCollister appeared on "Neighbors With Benefits,"
which aired on A&E in 2015.
A cast member of Neighbors With Benefits, a short-lived A&E reality show about swinger couples in a suburban community that aired in 2015, has been arrested in connection with two sex crimes.
Tony McCollister, 43, was taken into custody on Tuesday, Dec. 23, according to records of Ohio's Warren County Jail. He's been charged with pandering an obscenity involving a minor and sexual conduct with an animal.
NBC's Cincinnati station, WLWT News 5, cited court documents in reporting that authorities are accusing McCollister of uploading child sex abuse imagery to his Google account and engaging in sexual activity with two dogs he owned.
His home address was listed as the same one belonging to Erica Grove, a woman who was charged with sexual conduct with an animal on the same date. She was not part of the show.
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Scott Gries/A&E
The alleged animal crime is a misdemeanor, while the one involving a child is a felony that can result in up to eight years in prison, along with a fine of $15,000, according to the news outlet.
McCollister was arraigned on Monday morning, where he was ordered to "have no contact with children or pets." He's currently being held on $250,000 cash-only bond.
He is scheduled to return to court on Tuesday, Dec. 30.
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Warren County officials for more information.
Neighbors With Benefits, which followed married couples in a neighborhood described as both average and suburban, as they lived their lives as parents and professionals but also swingers.
It aired for just two episodes before A&E took the show off the air, and Deadline also reported that another seven hours of episodes were being shelved.
At the time, EW TV critic Gillian Telling told the Cincinnati Inquirer that the show's bad reviews were to blame for its demise. But there was also the thought that the audience didn't believe the premise. "As we learned, it's not an easy lifestyle to lead," she told the publication.
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Did Bill Clinton Cover Up Jeffrey Epstein's Crimes? FBI Ignored Financier's Child Sexual Abuse Allegation When Former POTUS Was in Office
Bill Clinton is under fire as more documents and photos in the Jeffrey Epstein files release to the public.
AsOK! reported, the docs revealed that in 1996, Maria Farmer accused the late financier of stealing and selling photos of her underage sisters.
At the time, she explained she was "a professional artist and took pictures of her sisters 12 and 16 yrs for her own [personal] Art Work."
"Epstein Stole the photos and Negatives and is believed to have sold the pictures to potential buyers," the complaint added, noting he also wanted "pictures of young girls at swimming pools."
Epstein threatened to burn her house down if she reported him — though she did anyway. However, the FBI allegedly never opened an investigation. Her complaint was made while Clinton was president, prompting people to wonder if he could have helped cover up the situation for his former pal.
When the files were released on Friday, December 19, Farmer said she was "shedding tears of joy for myself but also tears of sorrow for all of the other victims that the FBI failed."
"What’s new today is finally getting the FBI report of Maria Farmer from 1996 — this is triumph and tragedy for Maria and so many survivors. Maria Farmer reported Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s crimes in 1996. Had the government done their job, and properly investigated Maria’s report, over 1000 victims could have been spared and 30 years of trauma avoided," her lawyer added in a public statement. "After several years of asking for her records, the [government] finally released at least some of them today."
Epstein didn't face any repercussions related to child sexual abuse until 2005, later serving a year in prison on charges of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. In 2019, he committed suicide awaiting his s-- trafficking charges.
Clinton had a documented friendship with Epstein but denied ever participating in any of his s-- crimes.
When the plethora of photos from Epstein's estate were released and Clinton was seen in several, the former president's spokesperson, Angel Ureña, declared the investigation was "not about Bill Clinton."
"They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn't about Bill Clinton," Ureña said. "There are two types of people here. The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships after that. We're in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that."
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Maxwell, Epstein pleaded for Virginia Giuffre to ‘have our baby’ — prompting teen to hatch escape plan: memoir
Devilish duo Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell pleaded with a teenage Virginia Roberts Giuffre to “have our baby” — a request that had their victim concerned they were looking to breed children for their sex trafficking ring.
The perverted proposal came along with the promise of round-the-clock nannies, a mansion and a $200,000 per month allowance — but Giuffre would have to sign all legal rights to the child over to Epstein.
“Everything about Epstein and Maxwell’s brazen request felt wrong,” Giuffre penned in her posthumous memoir, “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice.”
“There was no way I wanted to bring a child into the world for them to raise. What if the baby were female? Was the plan for Epstein and Maxwell to have me bring that little girl up until she reached puberty, then hand her over for them to abuse?”
Giuffre, then just 18, told the pair she would fulfill their request — but instead secretly hatched an escape plan.
At that time, the summer of 2002, Giuffre had been with the pair for two years and had allegedly sustained a series of abuses at the hands of elite businessmen, including disgraced royal Prince Andrew and an unnamed Prime Minister who left her bloodied and beaten after their encounters, she claimed. Andrew has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Epstein and Maxwell’s plan to use her body as a vessel “pushed me past my breaking point,” Giuffre wrote.
The pair posed the question following an afternoon of snorkeling on Epstein’s private island in the US Virgin Islands, where the sex trafficker laid on a thick barrage of compliments and appreciation for her “devotion” to his lifestyle.
“Then he came out with it: ‘Jenna, I want you to have our baby,'” she wrote, referencing Epstein and Maxwell’s nickname for her.
“Though I’d heard him talk hypothetically about seeding the human race with his DNA, his proposal shocked me.”
Maxwell promised round-the-clock nannies, a mansion in Palm Beach or New York and “an astronomical figure of $200,000 per month.”
“But then came the conditions: like a modern-day handmaid, I would have to sign over to Epstein and Maxwell all legal rights to the child. I would have to travel with the child wherever and whenever Epstein wanted. I would have to attest, in writing, that Epstein and I were not a couple, and that the baby would remain with him if we ever had a falling out,” Giuffre alleged in the book.
The request was inconceivable for the teenager, who had suffered enough sexual abuse that pregnancy might not have been a solid possibility.
“Epstein and Maxwell had made so many demands that I had met, ignoring my own feelings in the hope of pleasing them. But this proposal would endanger another person: a helpless child. It was a bridge too far,” she continued.
“With perfect clarity, I simply knew that I couldn’t agree to their proposal. That said, I also knew I couldn’t just tell Epstein and Maxwell no. That was too dangerous. For the first time in more than two years, I began actively seeking a way to escape, buying time by pretending to think over their offer.”
Ultimately, Giuffre agreed — on the condition that the couple finally make good on their promise to put her through professional masseuse training.
Epstein sent her to the International Training Massage School in Thailand, where she was expected to continue recruiting girls for the sex trafficker.
Instead, she met her future husband, Robert Giuffre, who helped her escape the shackles of Epstein and Maxwell. The couple went on to have three children.
Neither Epstein nor Maxwell had children of their own.
The haunting tale was included in Giuffre’s memoir, set to be released next week, which she penned in the years before her tragic suicide in April. She was 41.
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