BANGOR, Maine -- Gerard Pepin, 62, an alcohol and drug abuse counselor in Florida, and a former alcohol and drug abuse counselor in the Bangor area was arrested last week in Panama City, FL on two counts of sexual battery and one count of sexual misconduct by a psychotherapist for charges stemming from an investigation in Daytona Beach.
Two of Pepin's ex-wives live in Maine and came forward to talk about his arrest because they fear that there may be more victims here in Maine and that's why they say they are speaking out.
"Actually he swept me off my feet he was like a prince charming, he was too good to be true as my friends had said, proposed on bended knee just a wonderful guy," explained Deborah Jones.
Jones says she moved from Maine to Florida with Pepin and they got married in 2006. They were still Married in 2011 when she says authorities came knocking at the door of their Port Orange Home.
"On May 14 2011 he came home after working a morning as white as a ghost and said to me, I'm in a lot of trouble."
He was under investigation for charges he forced a client of his at the Salvation Army in Daytona Beach to perform a sexual act on him, a woman he was supposed to be helping with drug addiction. According to court documents he threatened to turn in a "sex letter" she wrote and get her sent back to jail if she didn't do what he wanted.
"And he told me the crime he had been accused of and I asked if it happened and he said yes and I thought I was going to fall down," recalled Jones.
She says they separated and she moved back to Maine shortly afterward. But all the while she was talking to investigators and keeping in touch with Pepin. What she was doing, she says was helping them try and get a taped confession. Something she says took more than a year and a half.
"I basically had to tell him lots of things he wanted to hear and let him know I was on his side and very understanding," she said she eventually got that confession. About three years after the investigation began, On June 12 2014, Pepin was arrested. That's when Deb says she reached out to Charlene Beacham, Pepins second wife to tell her what happened.
"I could not and still find it so difficult to rationalize the two different men that are in this body, I never would have thought he was capable of doing anything like that," Beacham told us.
After learning of his arrest, she filed the paperwork to legally change her name from Pepin back to Beacham. She says they were married for about four years and she worked with him at his Bangor business where he worked as a counselor. She says at the time she never saw any problems but in hindsight she wonders if there were things she missed.
"It makes me disgusted to think he worked with people who were victimized, at some point anybody who's in counseling for substance abuse or mental health issues most likely has been victimized by someone in the past." Beacham explained.
In court documents, Pepin denies the charges in Florida and has no criminal charges that we could find in Maine, but he did lose his license to be an alcohol and drug counselor in Maine in 2005 for failing to comply with a consent agreement. According to that Consent Agreement He was formally reprimanded for being engaged in multiple dual relationships with a client including hiring her to work as his secretary. Charlene Beacham says that secretary was a young woman that he hired after they got divorced and she was no longer working there. She hopes if there were others victims that they'll come forward.
"I want them to know that they can come forward because we all know the truth now," said Beacham.
Deb Jones says that's what she wants too, and to those who may question her motives, she had this to say,
"I work in the mental health field and I am a mandated reporter to report any abuse or neglect that someone does to another or themselves and i take that ethic very strongly and i cannot lay down my head at night knowing that we he was hurting people and i didn't do anything."
Deb Jones did say that 75% of her is doing this because she wants justice for any possible victims, but she did say about 25% is because she does want revenge for the emotional and financial strain he caused her. She did also disclose that she is writing a book about her ordeal about going from a wife to a police informant.
We did attempt to reach Gerard Pepin at Volusia County Jail but were unsuccessful.
