A former A&E reality TV swinger has pleaded guilty in Ohio to child pornography and animal sex charges, yet still wants a judge-only trial on allegations he drugged and raped a 5-year-old girl.
WLWT reported that Tony McCollister pleaded guilty to 13 counts of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor and four counts of sexual conduct with an animal after his arrest in Warren County.
He still faces a separate charge of drugging and raping a young girl. That count is headed to a bench trial, a trial before a judge, not a jury. His partner, Erica Lynne Grove, was convicted last week of gross sexual contact and two counts of endangering a child, and she was found not guilty of rape. She had already pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual conduct with an animal. Both are scheduled to be sentenced in November.
The case began with an IP address. Authorities in Ohio tied explicit material involving children to McCollister, then arrested him and Grove in December. A six-month investigation followed.
Warren County Sheriff’s Office officials said in February they uncovered a video of the couple engaging in sexual conduct with two dogs. Investigators also recovered thousands of graphic text messages exchanged between McCollister and Grove.
Prosecutors alleged those messages showed actual abuse. Grove’s attorneys argued the texts were fantasy. A grand jury indictment against the Union Township couple covered drugging and raping a child, possession of child sexual abuse material, and sex with dogs.
The alleged victim was a young girl under 6 years old. WLWT reported she was 5 at the time. McCollister is the one still fighting that rape-related charge at a bench trial after admitting the child-pornography and animal-sex counts.
McCollister appeared on A&E’s “Neighbors with Benefits,” a short-lived series that followed swingers in an Ohio neighborhood. The show aired two episodes in 2015 and portrayed him as a leader in that community.
Years later, the same man stood in Warren County court admitting 13 child-pornography counts and four animal-sex counts while refusing to resolve the allegation that he drugged and raped a kindergartner-age child. Grove’s mixed verdict, guilty on gross sexual contact and child endangering, not guilty on rape, plus her earlier animal-sex pleas, leaves both defendants facing November sentencing dates on the counts already decided.
Child sexual abuse material cases often start with a digital trail. Here, an IP link led to an arrest, a video with dogs, a mass of text messages, and a charge sheet that put a 5-year-old girl at the center of the most serious remaining count. Local prosecutors and the Warren County Sheriff’s Office built the file; the courts are now sorting pleas, a not-guilty finding, and one outstanding bench trial.
McCollister’s guilty pleas lock in the child-pornography and bestiality counts. The rape-related charge remains live. Grove’s convictions on gross sexual contact and endangering a child stand beside her acquittal on rape and her prior animal-sex pleas. Sentencing for both is set for November.
Ohio law treats pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor as a serious felony track, and sexual conduct with an animal as its own criminal offense. A bench trial on the remaining child-rape allegation will put the evidence, including whatever investigators took from the six-month probe, before a judge without a jury.
Reality television once packaged McCollister as a neighborhood personality. Court records now package him as a defendant who admitted exploiting children on video and files, admitted sex with animals, and still must answer for the alleged drugging and rape of a girl who was 5.
When the evidence shows child sexual abuse material, animal cruelty sex offenses, and a little girl in the charging documents, the only fit response is prosecution to the full extent of the law, and zero patience for anyone who treated a child as disposable.
