Tony McCollister entered guilty pleas on Sept. 28 to 13 counts involving sexual content and four counts of sexual conduct with an animal.

The former reality TV personality still faces separate Ohio allegations that he took part in drugging and raping a five-year-old child. Remaining charges are set for a bench trial, a proceeding decided by a judge rather than a jury.

The Daily Caller reported the pleas and the open child-related case. McCollister appeared with his wife on A&E’s 2015 series “Neighbors with Benefits,” a show that followed swingers and drew backlash before cancellation after just two episodes.

Entertainment figures keep landing in serious criminal dockets, a pattern also visible when a former America’s Got Talent contestant faced a murder charge tied to a child’s death.

People reported that McCollister is still facing four counts of rape, five counts of gross sexual imposition, three counts of endangering children, and one count of corrupting another with drugs. Investigators and prosecutors have not publicly closed those counts with a conviction.

WLWT reported that earlier court documents alleged McCollister uploaded child sexual abuse imagery and engaged in sexual conduct with two dogs he owned. Those document claims sit alongside the counts he has already admitted.

Arrest came in December. The pleas followed months later. The public record laid out in coverage does not name the precise courthouse city or docket number for the Sept. 28 admissions.

Related case against Erica Grove

Erica Grove, a woman McCollister had a relationship with at the time, received her own verdict in September. A judge found her guilty of two counts of gross sexual imposition and two counts of endangering children.

High-profile sex-crime dockets in the entertainment orbit continue to draw scrutiny, including a matter in which a Hollywood actor faced 24 felony counts over alleged sexual abuse of minors.

Judge Robert Peeler found Grove not guilty of four counts of rape and one count of corrupting another with drugs, WLWT reported. Her mixed result left the most severe rape counts unresolved against her while lesser counts stuck.

McCollister’s remaining child-related counts now move on a separate track. People reported the bench trial posture for those charges after the Sept. 28 pleas on the sexual-content and animal-conduct counts.

What the pleas cover and what still hangs open

The guilty pleas locked in 13 counts involving sexual content plus four counts of sexual conduct with an animal. Court records described in local reporting had already pointed to conduct with two dogs he owned and to uploaded child sexual abuse imagery.

Reality-television households have created other criminal cases as well, including the arrest of Kim Zolciak’s 15-year-old son on aggravated sodomy and sexual battery charges in Georgia.

No public sentencing detail for McCollister’s admitted counts appears in the available court summaries tied to the pleas. Authorities have not released a full statutory breakdown beyond the count totals and labels already reported.

The Ohio child allegations remain contested ground in the legal sense: they are charges and claims he still faces, not findings of guilt. Prosecutors will have to prove each element if the bench trial goes forward on the rape, gross sexual imposition, endangering children, and corrupting-another-with-drugs counts.

Timeline of a collapse from reality TV to criminal court

In 2015, McCollister and his wife appeared on “Neighbors with Benefits.” The series framed their lifestyle for national cable audiences, then ended after two episodes amid backlash.

Former young television names have also met the justice system in recent cycles, among them former child star Jonathan Taylor Thomas after an arrest on public intoxication and resisting charges in California.

December brought McCollister’s arrest. September brought Grove’s split verdict before Judge Peeler. On Sept. 28 he entered the guilty pleas on the 13 sexual-content counts and the four animal-conduct counts. The child-focused charges stayed alive for the bench trial track.

People and WLWT supplied the core charge lists, plea date, Grove outcomes, and earlier document allegations that the Daily Caller assembled for readers. Primary filings, full statute cites, and a published trial calendar for the remaining counts have not been laid out in that same public summary.

Legal posture and next steps

A guilty plea is a formal admission in open court. It removes the need for the state to prove those specific counts to a jury. Sentencing power then rests with the court on the admitted offenses, subject to statutes and any agreements not detailed here.

Other TV-linked prosecutions have turned on private messages and planning evidence, as when an ex-mistress of American Idol alum Caleb Flynn testified about texts allegedly tied to a plot to kill his wife.

For McCollister, the open file is the child case. Four rape counts, five gross sexual imposition counts, three endangering-children counts, and one count of corrupting another with drugs still require adjudication. A bench trial means the judge hears the evidence and renders the verdict without a jury.

Investigators and the court will need to determine how the admitted animal-conduct and sexual-content counts interact with sentencing on any later findings. They will also need to determine what proof supports or fails to support each remaining child-related count. Authorities have not publicly confirmed a trial date in the material reported so far.

Grove’s September outcome already shows how a single judge can split a multi-count indictment: guilt on gross sexual imposition and endangering children, acquittal on rape and the drug-corrupting count. McCollister’s path is now divided between admitted crimes and unproven allegations that still carry severe exposure.

The justice system’s job in cases like this is simple to state and hard to execute: separate proven conduct from contested claims, punish what the law and the evidence support, and keep the process anchored to charges, pleas, and verdicts rather than rumor.