FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WKRN) — A former cheer coach who confessed to secretly recording young girls has been sentenced to serve an additional 10 years in prison after accepting a plea deal Monday.
Andrew Halford, 35, pled guilty to five counts of aggravated unlawful photography of a minor in Williamson County, according to court records.
Those charges are in addition to more than a dozen charges for similar allegations against Halford out of Smith County, for which he was sentenced to 24 years in prison last October.
According to court records, Halford will serve sentences from Smith and Williamson County at the same time. He is also required to register as a sex offender.
The charges all stem from Halford’s time working as a tumbling coach at Elite Cheerleading and Gymnastics in Carthage, as well as Premier Athletics in Franklin, according to the Smith County Sheriff’s Office.
In January 2021, investigators in Smith County said Halford admitted to hiding a GoPro camera in a backpack and placing it on a shelf inside the studio bathroom in Carthage. Girls as young as 9 years old were videotaped while changing clothes, with footage dating back to 2017.
The same day Halford confessed, Franklin police said they found a similar set up inside a changing room at Premier Athletics, where he had hidden another GoPro camera. Franklin police said 60 victims — most of them minors — were recorded on the camera at Premier.
Halford was the tumble academy director at Premier Athletics and had been with the studio for nearly seven years, according to the facility’s Facebook page.