The documentary series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV made shocking revelations about sexual predatory behavior on the sets of several Nickelodeon programs.
Trigger Warning: This article talks about sexual assault and abuse. Please take care while reading.
One particularly upsetting detail shared on the Investigation Discovery (ID) series referenced a young girl, named in the documentary as Brandi, who was one of the victims of All That and The Amanda Show production assistant Jason Michael Handy. Brandi’s mom is one of the several people interviewed for Quiet on Set.
Brandi’s disturbing interactions with Jason Handy
Brandi, whose name viewers believe might be an alias, was an extra on an episode of The Amanda Show as an 11-year-old girl in the early 2000s. After her experience working for Nickelodeon, she exchanged e-mail addresses with Jason Handy who, according to her mother (who goes by MJ on the ID show), would e-mail her frequently during that period.
While the exchanges, Brandi’s mom says in the docu-series, seemed innocent at first, they soon turned sexual in nature when the much older man sent the child a picture of himself naked, masturbating. According to Brandi’s mom, in the e-mail, Jason said he “had sent it to her because he wanted her to see that he was thinking of her.” The young girl ran to her bedroom crying after opening it.
At the time, Brandi’s mom did not involve the police for fear it would reflect badly on her as a parent. The girl left the film and television industry for good. Both her identity and her current whereabouts were kept secret in the ID series.
What happened to Jason Handy?
A tip unrelated to Brandi’s case led to Handy’s arrest in April 2003. According to the docu-series, police found over 10,000 images of children, over 1,700 images of young girls in erotic poses, and seven videos of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct in his home. In a personal journal, the man had detailed his sexual urges, writing “I am a pedophile, full-blown,” “I really have been giving into my desire for little girls these past few weeks,” and “I even struggle on a day-to-day basis of how I can find a victim to rape if I have to.”
Brandi was one of the only victims to cooperate with the investigation, which also included another guest star on another Nickelodeon production — Cousin Skeeter — who was assaulted by the PA at her home in 2000.
Handy was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading no contest to two felony counts and a misdemeanor, per the Los Angeles Times. After his release in 2009, he moved to North Carolina where he registered as a sex offender, but in 2014 he was arrested again. According to multiple reports, Handy is now incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Petersburg, Virginia, and his release date is August 28, 2038.
If you know someone suffering from sexual violence, contact RAINN or the National Sexual Abuse Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-4673.