Friedle also recounted: “He then asked us to support him and go to court with him, which a lot of us did. We’re then sitting in that courtroom, on the wrong side of everything, of course having no idea. It was filled with child actors, to the point that the victim’s mother turned around and said: ‘Look at all the famous people you brought with you, and it doesn’t change what you did to my kid.’”
“There were a lot of us there who were very recognizable,” he went on. “[Peck] had Rider and I write letters of support to the judge, and these were things that we did. And, again, we did them because we were lied to. We weren’t told the whole story. But that doesn’t change the fact that we did it.”
Friedle went on to add: “I was 24, 25 when it happened. The idea that I didn’t know, couldn’t spot it, that was my own failure, in my mind. I don’t even know how to put half of what I’m feeling into words… In my head, there’s no excuses — how did you not see this?!” He was 27 when Peck was arrested.
“There’s an actual victim here, and he turned us against the victim to where now we are on his team,” he continued. “And that’s the thing where, to me, I look back at that as my ever-loving shame… 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.”
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