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A sleazebag Hollywood actor allegedly used bogus ‘casting calls’ to lure teenage girls before sexually abusing them.
Accused sicko Shane Ryan Gledhill, 46, of Lompoc, was finally picked up Tuesday by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office after a five-year investigation that produced 15 felony sex abuse charges against the creep, cops said.
Gledhill has built a lengthy Hollywood resume, appearing in roughly 120 films and producing more than 150 projects featuring big-name stars including Shelley Duvall, Richard Dreyfuss, Ed Harris and Tom Arnold, according to his IMDb page.
The actor cultivated an edgy persona, claiming “he realized that he could have an impact with film-making in regards to issues like child abuse and sexual assault, in an effort to bring awareness and understanding to important topics through cinema.”
But investigators say the alleged predator weaponized those Hollywood credentials, using online casting calls and independent filmmaking projects to target young girls.
Investigators began their probe into the cinematic scum in 2021 after a 17-year-old girl contacted cops with a report of suspicious and inappropriate conduct involving Gledhill when she was 15-years-old.
As detectives continued their work, they identified two additional survivors of Gledhill’s alleged abuse.
Armed with the testimony of those three victims, cops in 2022 searched Gledhill’s home on Courtney Drive in Lompoc, where they seized thousands of digital files that were subsequently examined through an extensive digital forensic investigation.
Over the course of that investigation, detectives uncovered nine victims, all of whom were minors at the time of the alleged offenses. That’s when cops learned Gledhill contacted many of the girls through online casting calls and filmmaking projects.
After building their case, sheriff’s detectives finally pounced on Gledhill at his Lompoc home. He is now being held on $500,000 bail.
Gledhill faces 15 felony charges including child molestation, rape, forcible sexual assault, contacting a minor with the intent to commit a sexual offense, possession of child sexual abuse material and providing harmful matter to a minor.
Detectives hope his mugshot will help more survivors and witnesses recognize him and come forward.
The accused perv maintained a busy online presence with the use of a slew of handles @madsincinema, @talkhardcinema, @shaneryanreid, @shaneryanreidfilms, cops said.
They believe Gledhill’s criminal activities may have spanned 25 years, with victims from California’s Central Coast, LA and potentially the East Coast through his filmmaking and casting activities.
Gledhill claims in his online biography that he lives a “straight-edge lifestyle” and has worked with a vast network of stars, including a dozens of actors and famous musicians including Coolio, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic and Slipknot singer Corey Taylor.
He had a penchant for making smut, “which caused him to become a controversial figure in his hometown when he began making violent films involving stories of sexual abuse,” according to an IMDB bio.
Academy Award nominated actress Lesley Ann Warren was so outraged by the promotional materials for one of Gledhill’s films that she successfully argued that his promotions be banned, his bio says.
He tried to make a movie about human trafficking and the Stockholm Syndrome but encountered public pushback and pivoted to produce an apologetic film about convicted murder Alyssa Bustamante, who killed her nine-year-old neighbor at age 15.
Gledhill’s brother is producer Jeremy Williams, who made at least one film starring his accused sex predator sibling.
English (US)