Kriti Mehrotra
As a documentary series living up to its title in every way conceivable, ID’s ‘Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV’ can only be described as equal parts bewildering, haunting, and shocking. That’s because it delves deep into precisely how a lot of former Nickelodeon child stars survived brutal abuse at the hands of the adult coworkers they trusted back in the late 1990s and 2000s. Amongst them was actually production assistant Jason Michael Handy — so now, if you simply wish to learn more about him, his offenses, plus his current standing, we’ve got the details for you.
Who is Jason Handy?
Although originally from Nebraska, Jason was happily settled in California and living his dream of being a significant part of Hollywood behind the scenes by the time he was in his mid-20s. The truth is he not just served as a production assistant at some of the most nationally prominent kids’ television programs but also volunteered at a Malibu Church as an aid for 6-year-olds. This means he had unwavering access to minors at almost all times, allowing him to gain their trust before exchanging email addresses, phone numbers, and even home addresses with them.
According to the aforementioned original, Jason’s primary role on Nickelodeon sets was to escort child actors around while ensuring none of their parents or guardians were permitted close by. He was apparently very charismatic and charming too, especially as he did his best to personally converse with these caretakers during his breaks, which is why none of them were weary of him. Little did they know that by subsequently letting him remain in touch with their young ones, thinking it’d help for future opportunities, they were enabling his darkest desires in the worst way.
We can confidently state this because following 11-year-old Brandi’s stint in ‘The Amanda Show’ plus her encounter with Jason, her mother was actually happy she’d made a friend in the industry. She was thus admittedly utterly okay with them emailing back and forth, particularly as it seemed innocent enough at first, only for one photograph from his side to turn everything upside down. “It was a picture of him naked masturbating,” Brandi’s mother MJ revealed in the ID docuseries. “[In the mail,] he said he had sent it to her because he wanted her to see that he was thinking of her.”
MJ never reported this incident to the police upon careful consideration because she didn’t want Brandi to be further traumatized, yet they did mutually decide to step out of this business for good. However, their ordeal was far from over as officials themselves contacted them in 2003 after receiving a tip about Jason having a lot of inappropriate materials at his Sherman Oaks residence. It turns out over 1,700 images of minors in explicit positions, 7 child pornographic videos, as well as several tagged ziplock bags were recovered from his place, leading to his arrest on April 12.
Each of these ziplock bags reported consisted of various “tokens” from different young girls, and one of them had Brandi’s name on it with the letters she’d previously written to him inside. This 28-year-old’s personal diary was also found by authorities during this search, just for them to learn he even referred to himself as a “pedophile, full blown” with a consuming “desire for little girls.” One of his entries also read, in part, “I even struggle on a day-to-day basis of how I can find a victim to rape if I have to” before yielding one of his victims to be a child actor from ‘Cousin Seeker.’
Jason Handy is in Federal Custody Today
It was in 2004 that, with the help of statements from both his identified survivors, Jason pled no contest to lewd acts on a minor, distributing explicit material by email, and child sexual exploitation. As per court records, he’d actually assaulted his then-9-year-old ‘Cousin Seeker’ victim by forcefully kissing her in her home while playing video games together in 2002 — he’d then told her not to tell her mom. He was then sentenced to a total of 6 years behind bars, yet was released early on parole in 2009 before eventually being allowed to relocate to North Carolina as a registered sex offender.
Then came 2014, and Jason was again arrested from his home (in Guilford County) on October 7 for three counts of felony indecent liberties with a child plus two counts of felony sex offender violations. He was subsequently held on a $1 million bond awaiting court proceedings, which ultimately resulted in him getting convicted for good — though this time, it was in the federal jurisdiction. In other words, today, at the age of 49, Jason is incarcerated at the low-medium-security Federal Correctional Institution, Petersburg Medium in Virginia, from where he’s expected to be released on August 28, 2038.
Read More: Christy Stratton and Jenny Kilgen: Where Are The Amanda Show Writers Now?
