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Investigation Discovery’s docuseries on Nickelodeon unsealed the letters of support dialogue coach Brian Peck received after being arrested for sexually abusing actor Drake Bell in 2003.
The contents of the letters were briefly shown during the fourth episode of Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, which will air on Monday, March 18. Directors Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz confirmed to Us Weekly that they petitioned the Los Angeles court to unseal the court documents while making the docuseries.
According to journalist Kate Taylor, the letters asked the judge to grant Peck, now 63, probation at the time. Taylor noted it’s unclear how much Peck’s friends knew about the charges against Peck.
Peck was a crew member who worked in front of and behind the camera on dozens of Hollywood productions. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Peck was employed on several of producer Dan Schneider’s projects at Nickelodeon.
He was arrested after an unnamed child star accused him of sexual abuse. The 11 charges brought against Peck included oral copulation, sodomy, and forcible penetration. He pleaded no contest to two charges of child sexual abuse and was sentenced to 16 months in prison in 2004. He is now a registered sex offender.
During the ID docuseries, Bell, now 37, revealed he was the then-minor involved in the lawsuit. He recalled being surprised when people packed into the courtroom to support Peck (who has no relation to Bell’s former Nickelodeon costar Josh Peck) on the day the dialogue coach was set to be sentenced.
“On the day of sentencing for Brian, I get to the courthouse and it was the most unbelievable thing you have ever seen,” Bell, 37, told cameras. “His entire side of the courtroom was full. There were definitely some recognizable faces on that side of the room, and my side was me, my mom, and my brother.”
Bell added: “I addressed my statement to everyone in the room. I looked at all of them and I just said, ‘How dare you. You will forever have the memory of sitting in this courtroom and defending this person. And I will forever have the memory of the person you are defending violating me and doing unspeakable acts and crimes. And that is what I will remember.’”
The docuseries didn’t specify which celebrities publicly showed their support for Peck in court. However, James Marsden, Taran Killam, Alan Thicke, and Ron Melendez were some of the stars to contribute the 41 letters of support, which Peck provided to the judge. It’s noted that neither Schneider, 58, nor top executives at Nickelodeon wrote any letters.
Bell pointed out that Schneider — whom he worked with on The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh — offered him support after finding out he was involved in the case.
“The only person I remember being there for me is Dan,” Bell said in the docuseries.
While speaking to Us, Quiet on Set directors Robertson and Schwartz discussed the process of unsealing the documents.
“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. “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.”
Robertson addressed whether they were concerned about the public response from people who wrote the letters, concluding, “The letters have been entered into the public record, they’re available.”
Keep scrolling for a breakdown of some of the familiar names who supported Peck at the time — and their letters:
Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV airs on ID Sunday, March 17, and Monday, March 18, at 9 p.m. ET.
James Marsden
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After working with Peck on movies such as Public Enemies and X-Men, Marsden, 50, reflected on their friendship in his letter.
“I can easily say that Brian is one of the reasons why I have been as successful as I have been in this industry,” Marsden wrote at the time. “I was lucky enough to have been graced with Brian’s guidance, uncommissioned guidance I might add, and support in pursuing an acting career.”
Marsden referred to Peck as a “mentor” to him, adding, “I don’t mean to dramatize this but I am speaking wholeheartedly about a man who’s heart is pure and no matter what you’re talking about, his intentions are always good. He has such an amazing capacity to care about people. This, I find, is very rare. Especially in Hollywood. Brian genuinely cares about other human beings.”
According to the docuseries, Marsden compared Peck’s suffering after his arrest to that of “a hundred men.”
“When I first heard the news of Brian’s arrest I couldn’t breathe. I could not believe what was happening. It was unimaginable,” he concluded. “I’ve known Brian for 14 years and never once did I ever see any sign of him being capable of something like this. I have lived at his house for months and shared hotel rooms with him and never once did he ever make me feel compromised or uncomfortable in any way. I don’t know what it would take to have something like this occur, whatever it is, it is extremely out of character for Brian.”
Marsden was also mentioned in X-Men producer Thomas DeSanto‘s letter about Peck. DeSanto, 56, noted that Peck served as Marsden’s best man when he married Lisa Linde in 2000. (Us Weekly has reached out to Marsden for comment.)
Taran Killam
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