Stoney Westmoreland, who played the grandfather, Ham Mack, on Disney Channel’s sitcom Andi Mack, was recently fired amid allegations of trying to arrange an online meet-up to have sex with a 13-year-old boy. He has been charged with six felony counts involving the case.
“Given the nature of the charges and our responsibility for the welfare of employed minors, we have released him from his recurring role and he will not be returning to work on the series which wraps production on its third season next week,” the Disney Channel said in a statement.
Westmoreland, 48, was on the dating app Grindr when he found a profile that appeared to be an underage boy but was actually operated by a police detective in Salt Lake City, near the location where the show Andi Mack is filmed, prosecutors said. The actor was arrested on Dec. 13 after he allegedly went to meet the boy so they could go back to his hotel room in which he purportedly had sent over explicit photos and asked for nude photos in return, authorities said. The charging documents state that He acknowledged to police he had sent nude photos and knew the person he was speaking with said he was 13 years old.
Westmoreland was charged Friday with enticing a minor, attempted exploitation of a minor, and four counts of dealing in material harmful to a minor by an adult.
The age of the alleged victim is the same as the central characters on Andi Mack and the young actors who play them. The comedy, created by Terri Minsky, follows 13-year-old Andi Mack and her best friends, Cyrus Goodman and Buffy Driscoll, as they attend middle school.