James J. Pepe
Posted on 09/28/2012 6:35:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
PLANT CITY — A squabble that started in a high school social studies department escalated to the point that one of the teachers looked for a hit man to kill the other, police said Thursday.
The teachers, James J. Pepe of Brandon and Robert Meredith of Plant City, were once friendly. But while working together at Strawberry Crest High School in Dover, the seething started.
...."Meredith was allegedly telling everybody (Pepe) was a child molester," Towles said.
As classes were about to end Thursday, police arrested Pepe, 55, outside Bloomingdale High, where he teaches history. He faces a charge of solicitation of first-degree murder, and was being held without bail at the Hillsborough County jail.
......Meredith, 49, taught at Plant City High before moving to Strawberry Crest.
Records show Pepe was arrested once before in Florida.
In 1995, he was charged with disorderly conduct, a second-degree misdemeanor. He attended a pretrial intervention program as part of a plea deal, records show. Details of that case were not available Thursday evening.
One former student, Dee Dee Cardenas, 22, of Dover, who was in Pepe's government class at Durant High in 2007, was stunned to hear her former teacher was behind bars.
He was known by students as Dr. Pepe — a play on the soda, but also a reference to Pepe's doctoral degree in education, awarded from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2001.
(Excerpt) Read more at tampabay.com ...
My kids would have attended the school he currently works at if we hadn’t started home schooling.
Sounds like Social Sciences ain’t all “Social” at that school...
I don’t know, by the mug shot he looks like a nice enough guy. /s/
He looks like a teamster :)
“He looks like a teamster”
Yeah, when I first saw the pic I got that “if you don’t pay up I’ll break your legs” feeling.
prolly pays dues to the same union ;-)
Well...did pay.
Picked a non-union hitman, obviously ;).
50 years ago I had teachers that looked like that. But they were women.
HA!
“....”Meredith was allegedly telling everybody (Pepe) was a child molester,” Towles said. “
I submit that if you start saying stuff like that it’d better be true, because that’s worse than “fighting words.”
People like this are not taken seriously enough. He should be put away for life if he actually intended to kill someone that didn’t need killing.
Sounds like we’d all be better off without either teacher.
Perp Pepe holds a doctoral degree in education.....
Could have fooled me, but then again maybe not.
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