Brian Peck Charges: A Full Rundown Of The 11 Crimes He Was Accused Of
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Trigger Warning: This article contains depiction of sexual assault. If you’re watching the ID documentary series, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, you might be wondering what exactly Brian Peck’s charges were. Former Nickelodeon star Drake Bell came forward about his experiences with the acting coach.
“My name is Drake Bell and I came here today to tell my story,” Bell says during the documentary’s third episode. In one instance of his interview, he revealed that he was sexually abused by Peck.
“I was sleeping on the couch where I would usually sleep. I woke up to him — I opened my eyes, I woke up and he was sexually assaulting me. I froze and was in complete shock and had no idea what to do or how to react, and I have no idea how to get out of this situation,” Bell said, who was 15 years old at the time and didn’t know what to do. Peck was “so apologetic,” saying it would never happen again.
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“He figured out how to convince my mom and everyone around to, anytime I would have an audition or anytime I needed to work on dialogue or anything, I somehow ended up back at Brian’s house and it just got worse and worse and worse and worse. I was just trapped. I had no way out,” said Bell. “The abuse was extensive and it got pretty brutal. I don’t know how to elaborate on that on camera, really… Why don’t you think of the worst stuff that someone could do to somebody as a sexual assault, and then I’ll answer your question. I don’t know how else to put it.”
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
Brian Peck’s Charges
Brian Peck was charged with 11 counts against the child actor in 2003. Those of which included: of a lewd act upon a child; sodomy of a person under 16; attempted sodomy of a person under 16; sexual penetration by a foreign object; four counts of oral copulation of a person under 16; oral copulation by anesthesia or controlled substance; sending harmful matter; and using a minor for sex acts.
A year later, he was sentenced to 16 months in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender. After he was released from prison, Peck landed a job at Disney Channel for the show The Suite Life Of Zach & Cody. However, Variety reported that he was terminated after they learned of his history. Court documents obtained by the Daily Mail stated that Peck is only “prohibited from direct contact with children, not from being part of productions in which children are acting.” When asked about the documentary Peck said he “had no comment on it.”
Directors of the documentary Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz discussed the process of unsealing the court documents that weren’t available to the public. “We began hearing from people who had been at Nickelodeon around this time that they had been asked to write letters of support. I had been a court reporter so I knew in general that letters of support are supposed to be public documents,” Schwartz explained about letters that James Marsden, Alan Thicke, and Taran Killam wrote.
“But when we went to the court, they were not public. So we spoke with our lawyers and we said, ‘What can we do?’ And they said, ‘Well, you can petition the court to unseal them.’” She continued: “That’s in fact what we did. And the court agreed to release those letters. We didn’t know what we would find. We didn’t know who would be in there. And that’s what you see in the documentary.”
On March 24, 2024, in an episode of the show La Entrevista con Yordi Rosado, Bell detailed how shocked he was that Peck was still working in Hollywood after his conviction. “I remember one time I saw him at a restaurant and he was at the table with like 10 or 12 actors, all male actors between the ages of 14 and 16, and I walked in and saw him,” Bell recalled. “I saw that he was right back to what he was doing and I turned around and left.”
What happened to Drake Bell?
In 2021, Bell was arrested in Ohio on June 5 and charged with attempted endangerment of a child and disseminating matter harmful to juveniles. He pleaded not guilty to the charges at the time, which allegedly stem from a 2017 internet chat. He agreed to have no contact with the alleged victim in the case. After a hearing on June 23, 2021, Bell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation and 200 hours of community service. “I accept this plea because my conduct was wrong,” Bell said, according to The Associated Press. “I’m sorry the victim was harmed. It was not my intention.”
The victim, who was 19 at the time of the hearing, claimed that Bell began to groom her when she was 12 years old. She said she initially felt loved and protected by him during online chats and that his messages became “blatantly sexual” after she turned 15. She said his remarks made her feel uncomfortable, but she felt trapped because she “idolized” him. “I was definitely one of his biggest fans,” said the woman. “I would have done anything for him.” The woman said that she and Bell exchanged explicit photos online and engaged in sexual conduct with her on several occasions. She called Bell a “pedophile” and a “coward.” The Cuyahoga County Judge Timothy McCormick who presided over the case told Bell, “The fact of the matter is your position and celebrity status let you nurture this relationship. You were able to gain access to this child.”
Bell posted an Instagram video explaining the matter. “I want to make clear that there were no sexual images, nothing physical between me and this individual. I was not charged with anything physical. I was not charged with disseminating of photographs or images or anything like that. This is strictly over text messages. And when I was presented with a plea deal, because of the messages, I felt that it was the best way to get this over quickly, and for everyone involved to be able to move on, and for me to get back to doing what I love, and that’s making music for you.”
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
Who wrote letters of support for Brian Peck?
Boy Meets World stars Will Friedle and Rider Strong talked on their podcast Pod Meets World about how they regret supporting Brian Peck when he was arrested in 2003. The duo detailed that the producer made time to spend with them. “This was the type of thing where the person he presented was this great, funny guy who was really good at his job, and you wanted to hang out with,” said Friedle. “I saw him every day, hung out with him every day, talked to him every day.” They also disclosed that they “spent a lot of time together outside of work.”
“We’re sitting in that courtroom on the wrong side of everything … The victim’s mother turned and said, ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And it doesn’t change what you did to my kid,’” Friedle shared. “I just sat there wanting to die. It was like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ It was horrifying all the way around.”
“We weren’t told the whole story, but it doesn’t change the fact that we did it. I still can’t get the words out to describe all of the things that I’m feeling inside of myself.”
Friedle continued, “There’s an actual victim here. And he turned us against the victim to where now we’re on his team. That’s the thing where, to me, I look back at that as my ever-loving shame for this entire [thing],” he said. “Getting taken in by somebody who’s a good actor and a manipulator, I could chalk that up to being young and that’s the way it is. It’s awful. I’m going to use that for my growth as a human being, but when there’s an actual victim involved and now I’m on the abuser’s side, that’s the thing I can’t get over and haven’t been able to get over.”
In the documentary, All That stars Giovonnie Samuels and Bryan Hearne talked about their relationship with Peck who worked on the show. “We would run lines with him all the time. He signed my ‘All That’ yearbook,” said Samuels of Peck. “We were invited to his house for parties and things.
“We were all under this naive cloak of, ‘We’re a family, we all hang out,’” she added. “‘This is normal. This is common that an adult would want to be friends with a child.“
During Peck’s trial, James Marsden wrote a letter of support, “I assure you what Brian has been through in the last year is the suffering of 100 men,” adding that he has known Peck since he was a teenager.
‘I’m Glad My Mom Died’ by Jennette McCurdy
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For more on the alleged abuse within Nickelodeon, read Jennette McCurdy’s 2022 memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. In #1 The New York Times bestseller, McCurdy, who starred as Sam Puckett on Nickelodeon’s iCarly from 2007 to 2012, opens up about growing up as a child star, her time on Nickelodeon, and the alleged abuse she suffered from her late mother, who died while Puckett was starring on the iCarly spinoff, Sam & Cat. “Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair,” the publisher’s description reads.
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