Former reality TV star Tony McCollister pleaded guilty to sexual conduct with animals and related counts, even as he still faces child rape charges in Ohio.
The Daily Caller reported that McCollister entered guilty pleas on Sept. 28 to 13 counts involving sexual content and four counts of sexual conduct with an animal.
Those pleas close only part of the case. He still faces separate allegations that he helped drug and rape a five-year-old child in Ohio, and a bench trial is set to decide the remaining counts.
McCollister once appeared with his wife on A&E’s 2015 swingers series “Neighbors with Benefits.” The show drew heavy backlash and was canceled after two episodes. Years later, the same name is tied to some of the ugliest charges on an Ohio docket.
On Sept. 28, McCollister admitted guilt on 13 counts involving sexual content and four counts of sexual conduct with an animal.
People magazine’s coverage, cited in the Daily Caller report, placed those pleas against a longer charge sheet that is not finished. He still faces four counts of rape, five counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of endangering children, and one count of corrupting another with drugs.
Gross sexual imposition, under Ohio law, covers serious unlawful sexual contact short of rape. Endangering children and corrupting another with drugs are separate felony tracks that prosecutors stacked on the same alleged course of conduct.
Earlier court documents, described by WLWT and relayed in the same report, alleged that McCollister uploaded child sexual abuse imagery and engaged in sexual conduct with two dogs he owned. The Sept. 28 pleas include the animal counts; the child-related rape and endangerment counts remain for a judge to decide.
People reported that McCollister’s remaining charges will be decided in a bench trial, a trial before a judge, not a jury.
The pending allegations, as summarized in that coverage, say he was involved in drugging and raping a five-year-old child in Ohio. Those claims are charges and allegations, not convictions. The guilty pleas already entered do not resolve them.
McCollister was arrested in December. The public report does not pin a final calendar year on that arrest in the sentence that names it, but the case has since moved through plea hearings and related verdicts in Warren County’s orbit.
Oxygen True Crime noted he was standing trial on the alleged rape and drugging of a young child less than a week after a verdict for Erica Grove, described in that post as his alleged accomplice.
Grove had a relationship with McCollister at the time of the alleged crimes. In September, she was found guilty of two counts of gross sexual imposition and two counts of endangering children.
Judge Robert Peeler found her not guilty of four counts of rape and one count of corrupting another with drugs, WLWT reported.
That split outcome left McCollister’s path only partly aligned with hers. She has convictions on contact and endangerment counts. He has now admitted the animal and sexual-content counts, while the hardest child rape counts against him remain live for the bench trial.
“Neighbors with Benefits” sold viewers a lifestyle pitch in 2015. A&E pulled it after two episodes when the backlash hit.
McCollister’s later court record is a different story entirely: an arrest, a thick indictment, guilty pleas on animal sexual conduct and sexual-content counts, and unresolved rape, endangerment, and drug-corrupting counts centered on a five-year-old child.
Warren County coverage tracked the sex-crimes case as it moved toward trial. The Sept. 28 pleas narrowed what a judge still has to decide, but they did not wipe out the child-focused charges People listed.
No plea deal terms, sentencing range, or courtroom quotes from prosecutors or defense counsel appear in the available report. What is on the record is the plea tally, the open charge list, Grove’s mixed verdict under Judge Peeler, and the allegation history drawn from earlier court papers.
When a former TV face admits sexual conduct with animals and still sits on rape counts involving a small child, the legal system’s job is simple: finish the case, apply the law, and put the protection of children ahead of celebrity residue.
