Former Child Star Drake Bell Alleges He Was Sexually Abused by Brian Peck — Where Is He Now?

In August 2003, the Los Angeles Police Department released a statement about a disturbing arrest police made on the 19th of that month. According to the press release, "detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit, Juvenile Division, arrested 43-year-old Brian Richard Peck at his residence in Valley Glen," for performing lewd acts with a child.

The incident occurred two years prior in 2001, when Peck was an acting coach working with the victim. The victim's family had alerted authorities two weeks before he was arrested, claiming Peck had "molested the child over a six-month period." This resulted in a 16-month prison sentence for Peck who registered as a sex offender in October 2004, per Forbes. In March 2024, former child star Drake Bell came forward and revealed he was Peck's victim. Where is Brian Peck now? Here's what we know.

Since Peck's conviction in 2004, he has worked on several productions in various roles, according to his IMDB page. In 2013 he was a dialogue coach for 22 episodes of Charlie Sheen's show, Anger Management. In 2019 he worked as a researcher on Making Apes: The Artists Who Changed Film.

Peck has also acted in several projects that involve child actors including the The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, Outlaw Trail: The Treasure of Butch Cassidy, and 2009's Queerantine where he played a sex ed teacher. In June 2015, the Daily Mail tracked Peck down in Los Angeles ahead of the release of a documentary about child sexual abuse in the film industry.

Per the outlet, "Open Secret tells the story of five victims who say they were molested as young boys trying to make it in the film business." Peck was mentioned in the film which was the impetus behind the Daily Mail's deep dive into his status. Court documents obtained by the tabloid paper 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."

On their podcast Pod Meets World, Boy Meets World stars Will Friedle and Rider Strong shared the shame they felt around supporting Peck when he was arrested in 2003, via USA TODAY. Peck had guest starred on two episodes of the show which led to rather bizarre friendships between him and some of the younger cast. Friedle said Peck had "ingratiated himself" into the actor's life because he never went out much and wasn't a huge partier.

"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." Despite a 20 year age difference, Strong said he and Peck also "spent a lot of time together outside of work."

After Peck's arrest, he called Friedle while sobbing and proceeded to spin what happened in a different direction. Peck claimed the victim had seduced him and he was in fact the victim of a jailbait situation. "I never heard about the other things because, back then, you couldn’t Google to find out what people were being charged with," said Rider. When asked by Peck if they would support him in court, both Friedle and Strong wrote letters of support for Peck."

They recall sitting in the courtroom on Peck's side and seeing the victim's mother say, "Look at all the famous people you brought with you. And it doesn’t change what you did to my kid." That's when the shame set in. "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," said Friedle.