Two More Men Connected to Netflix Docuseries Cheer Charged With Sexual Misconduct Involving Minors

Two individuals associated with Netflix’s Cheer have been arrested for sexual misconduct involving children.

Mitchell Ryan, a 23-year-old member of the Navarro College cheer team, was arrested Thursday in Texas and charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, according to the Dallas Morning News. Ryan appeared in the series, but he was not one of the show’s main focuses.

In a separate criminal case, Robert Scianna Jr., a 25-year-old coach and choreographer who only appeared in a single episode, was arrested Wednesday in Virginia and accused of attempting to meet an underage boy for sex, according to Chesterfield County police. He was charged with “felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child and using an electronic communication device to solicit sex,” reports USA Today.

These arrests come just five months after one of Cheer’s most popular figures, Jerry Harris, was arrested for the production of child pornography. The charges stemmed from the allegations of 14-year-old twin brothers who maintained that Harris repeatedly harassed them online and in person when they were 13 and he was 19. One of the brothers also accused Harris of asking him for sex at two cheerleading competitions. Harris has since pleaded not guilty.

At the time of Harris’ arrest, Navarro coach Monica Aldama commented on Instagram that, “My heart is shattered into a million pieces… I’m praying hard for the victims and everyone affected.”

Cheer Season 2 had already hit a major snag when the national cheerleading competition for which the team prepares all year was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, putting the future of the show in limbo. “We’re still trying to figure that out,” director and executive producer Greg Whiteley told The Wrap in July, adding: “There’s enough interest in there being a subsequent season that it’d be silly for us not to explore it. But under the current conditions it’s made it complicated, I’ll say that. We’re still working through it.”