The housemate of a man who raped, beat and lit a woman on fire over 23 days is behind bars himself, accused of being an accessory to torture. 

Ex-professional soccer player Jeromy Lee Harris, 44, lived with Crilley, 34, in a suburban Brisbane townhouse when the younger man abused a woman, 22, over more than three weeks. 

Crilley pleaded guilty to more than 50 charges over the June and July 2017 brutality which included almost-daily physical and sexual assault, and left the woman permanently disfigured.  

Crilley’s crimes occurred largely at the two-storey Bulimba home he shared with Harris, as well as a city hotel. Crilley was sentenced to life in prison on Friday for his ‘despicable’ acts. 

Daily Mail Australia can reveal that flatmate Harris has been remanded in custody while he waits to face court over a series of related charges.  

Pro soccer player: Jeromy Lee Harris lived with Nicholas John Crilley when Crilley tortured, raped and lit his girlfriend on fire in June and July 2017

Crilley (left) had a history of working in the financial services industry, for the Commonwealth Bank. Harris was working as a mortgage broker at the time of the alleged offending

Housemates: Harris was living with Crilley at this suburban Brisbane townhouse at the time of Crilley’s offending. Harris has been charged with being an accessory after the fact to torture

Police charged Harris with torture, acts intending to maim, disfigure or disable, being an accessory after the fact to torture, and to a malicious act.

He has also been charged with three counts of supplying schedule-two dangerous drugs. 

Harris is yet to enter a plea to any of the charges and will next appear in front of a District Court judge at a court mention in Brisbane on May 18. 

Time in custody is a significant fall from grace for Harris, originally from Rockhampton in the state’s north. 

Jeromy Harris playing for the Olympic Sharks for the National Soccer League in 2001. The NSL was the forerunner to the A-League

When he was younger, Harris won two titles playing in the National Soccer League (NSL), for the Brisbane Strikers in 1997 and Sydney Olympic in 2002. 

(The NSL was the name of the top-level national competition before the A-League was established.)

Harris was working as a mortgage broker at the time of the alleged offending, as the managing director of Sunshine Home Loans.

He boasted on LinkedIn: ‘We’ll do everything possible to get you into your dream home.’ 

In sentencing Crilley last Friday, District Court Judge Anthony Rafter SC said on sentencing that Harris’ housemate Crilley had committed ‘despicable’ crimes. 

Crilley has admitted physically and sexually abusing the victim – who cannot be named – almost daily. Judge Rafter recalled that Crilley stabbed her in the face with a screwdriver, broke her teeth and left her with burns to more than 46 per cent of her body. The court heard Crilley poured boiling water and the cleaning solvent, acetone, on the young woman.

Crilley’s victim was found on the brink of death at the Bulimba home on July 2, 2017, after the torturer made an anonymous 000 call. A pillow at the crime scene above

Judge Rafter said Crilley had fallen into a ‘pattern’ where he would burn the victim at the Bulimba house, before heading upstairs to take drugs.  

‘You burnt the complainant over a number of hours, went upstairs and consumed drugs … returned later and assaulted her, asked for intercourse and returned upstairs.’    

Crilley later took the victim to a room at the Tower Mill Metro Hotel, where he continued to subject her to horrendous abuse, the judge said. He returned five days later, on June 29, 2017.  

Crilley anonymously called 000 on July 2, saying the victim was in ‘pretty bad shape’. 

She was found by paramedics at the Bulimba address, on the brink of death and stuck to a mattress. 

Emergency service workers could smell rotting flesh and initially thought she was dead until they heard a murmur.

On sentencing, Judge Rafter told Crilley his 000 call ‘undoubtedly led to the complainant’s life being saved. 

‘However, that is not necessarily an indication of remorse. Your treatment of the complainant was callous and cruel.’ 

Crilley was jailed for life by the Queensland District Court last Friday, a judge branding his crimes ‘despicable’ and ‘sadistic’

Crilley remained on the run until he was arrested following a police pursuit on July 10, 2017. 

Harris was charged with related offences on July 13, 2017, three days after Crilley’s address.

He was granted bail to his mother’s home in Yeppoon by a Queensland Supreme Court Justice that month. 

But a spokeswoman for the state’s District Court this week confirmed that Harris is currently ‘on remand’. 

He has alleged breach of bail matters before the Maroochydore Local Court.

Harris’ case returns to court in a fortnight.

Professional football player Demetrius Harris is the latest high-profile victim in America’s racially charged and backwards war on weed.

According to initial reports from TMZ and a follow-up from the Kansas City Star, Harris was arrested in August 2017 after a routine traffic stop in Bates County, Mississippi turned up 35 grams of marijuana and an unnamed piece of drug paraphernalia. Harris, a passenger in the car, was initially charged with felony marijuana possession and a misdemeanor for the paraphernalia. Eventually, in return for having the cannabis charge reduced to a misdemeanor, Harris was persuaded to plead guilty to both crimes.

Since Mississippi is one of America’s remaining states with hardline reefer madness drug laws still on the books, Harris was called back to the Magnolia State last week for a sentencing hearing, where a Bates County judge sentenced the professional football player to two days in jail, two years of probation, and 80 days of community service. Additionally, as cannabis is still on the NFL’s banned substances list, Harris will be required to enter the league’s substance abuse program.

Even though Harris was taken into custody at the time of the arrest last year, he was not awarded time served. Therefore, the athlete entered a Bates County jail on March 9th, and has since completed the first part of his punishment.

And while two days in jail might seem like a minor sentence, even for possession of a plant that is entirely legal in nine states and Washington D.C., the additional years of probation added to Harris’ time behind bars highlights the unnecessary stranglehold that the criminal justice system has on minor convicts, particularly people of color.

In a new investigation by Rolling Stone into the continued legal troubles of Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill, who has been in and out of jail on probation violations that stem from a 2008 weapons charge, reporter Paul Solotaroff details how an initially minor charge can lead to a life of court dates and criminal accusations, even for lauded celebrities.

“Here is the trap of our post-conviction system: Defendants, even famous ones, live at the mercy of their judge and probation officer,” Solotaroff details. “It’s one thing to toe the line while holding a nine-to-five. But to live a spotless life while chasing the prize in hip-hop? Now, there’s a manual someone needs to write.”

Similarly, Harris’ life as a professional football player, including traveling out of state to away games, potential media appearances and endorsement meetings, is not conducive to the life of a probationer, despite his undeniably positive societal role as an athlete. Like Meek Mill, Harris will be liable to be sent back to jail for any number of minor infractions, including missteps as small as scheduling conflicts — all for being charged with a bag of weed that could have been purchased legally at a store in any number of states.

Harris will also need to resolve the issue with the NFL, a notoriously anti-cannabis employer, despite the league’s highly publicized love affair with painkillers. Harris is on the last year of his current contract with the Chiefs, and will need to sell himself in free agency next offseason, a task that could prove incredibly hard with a criminal conviction shadowing him at every potential meeting.

Harris is just one of nearly a million people per year who are arrested for nonviolent cannabis crimes in the U.S. Until cannabis reform is adopted on a national scale, Americans, and especially people of color, will continue to be persecuted and subsequently roped into a system that can hold one down for years.

As of press time, the Kansas City Chiefs, Harris’ current team, have not released a comment concerning the tight end’s sentence.

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