The wealthy Democratic Party donor was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury. The five-count indictment includes a charge in the death of an ex-male performer, and adds charges that Buck provided meth to three other men — one of whom survived two overdoses.
Wealthy Democratic Party donor Ed Buck, who has been the subject of protests and calls for prosecution in the methamphetamine overdose-by-injection deaths of two male sex workers at his West Hollywood apartment, was indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury, charging him in the death of Timothy Dean, a former performer in gay porn videos
According to AVN, Dean performed in the videos under the nom de porn “Hole Hunter”.
Dean, who was found dead in Buck’s apartment January 7, was the second African-American man to die in Buck’s home of a meth overdose. Escort Gemmel Moore was found dead there on July 27, 2017.
Buck, 65, who is white and has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democratic Party causes, was finally arrested September 17 in connection with a third, though non-fatal, overdose.
Prosecutors said he preyed on vulnerable men, most of them black, some of them homeless and addicted to drugs, and pressured them to take drugs or let him inject them with narcotics as part of sexual activity known as “party and play” or P’n’P.
The indictment may be found at this link.
The Third Man
Buck’s third victim survived—but on Wednesday the federal grand jury charged Buck with distributing the drug methamphetamine leading to the deaths of booth Timothy Dean and Gemmel Moore, and for providing the drug to three other men.
Details of those encounters were included in an affidavit filed with a criminal complaint last month in federal court.
In one encounter, an escort who said he was paid $300 for his services in December, told detectives that Buck gave him a drink and he lost control of his body and passed out, according to court documents. When he regained consciousness, Buck was approaching him with two syringes loaded with meth and he made an excuse to leave the apartment.
In a second incident that month, the same escort said Buck gave him what he said was meth, but the man thought it was actually a tranquilizer because he was immobilized on the floor for more than six hours. Buck told the man to leave, but he couldn’t move.
Buck then became frustrated and threatened him with a buzzing power saw, the man said, according to the affidavit. A surge of adrenalin helped him get to his feet, retreat to the kitchen and he eventually left.
Another man said he met Buck in June on Adam4Adam, a gay dating and escort site, while he was living in a hotel on Skid Row in Los Angeles.
The man ended up living with Buck for part of the summer and said Buck injected him with meth on nearly a daily basis for five weeks, according to the affidavit.
He said he overdosed Sept. 4 and 11 when Buck injected him each time with two syringes of meth. On the final time, he said Buck also gave him GHB, the powerful sedative often referred to as a date-rape drug. He again felt he was overdosing and asked Buck to call an ambulance.
When Buck refused, the man left the apartment and went to a nearby gas station, where someone called an ambulance that took him to the hospital.
That final encounter led to Buck’s arrest
Wrongful Death
At an August 29 panel discussion regarding sex work held in West Hollywood, one panelist, a black man, reported he has been a client of Buck’s and has done drugs with him. Another said he considers Buck a serial killer who could kill again.
Last month, a Los Angeles federal judge has refused to toss out the wrongful death lawsuit against Buck and Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey over the methamphetamine overdose death of Gemmel Moore.
The complaint for wrongful death was filed in Los Angeles federal court by Moore’s mother, who died at Buck’s West Hollywood home in 2017. She alleges that the political fundraiser and mega-donor lured her son from Houston to Los Angeles for the purpose of engaging in “commercial” sex acts.
The civil suit also accuses Buck of human trafficking and engaging in “revenge porn” by making and sharing a video of his alleged “meth-fueled sexual encounters” with Moore.
The suit names Lacey for failing to prosecute the case.
Criminal charges
A bail motion from the Los Angeles district attorney’s office states that Buck is “a violent, dangerous sexual predator. He mainly preys on men made vulnerable by addition and homelessness.” According to the documents, Buck personally administered “dangerously large doses of narcotics to his victims” and is “a predator with no regard for human life.”
Activists have been calling for Buck’s arrest, believing him responsible responsible for the deaths of Gemmel Moore, 26, and Timothy Dean, 55. Both black gay men were found in Buck’s West Hollywood’s apartment less than two years apart. The coroner ruled that both deaths were caused by methamphetamine overdoses.
District Attorney Jackie Lacey’s office said Tuesday that Buck, 65, has now been charged with operating a drug house and providing meth to a 37-year-old man who overdosed last week.
The political donor was charged with one felony count each of battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house.
Authorities say Buck injected the victim with meth on Sept. 11 at Buck’s home in the 1200 block of Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood. The man suffered an overdose but survived.
Uncle Buck
Gimmel Moore had flown from Houston to Los Angeles the day he died, according to coroner’s investigators. His mother has told The L.A. Times that Buck purchased the airplane ticket.
No criminal charges were filed at the time and, as Jasmyne Cannick writes, Moore’s death was at first “explained away and classified as an accidental meth overdose by the Los Angeles County Coroner. It was only when excerpts from Moore’s personal journal were published as well as various accounts from additional victims did the [West Hollywood] sheriff’s department decide–albeit weeks too late and most likely after any and all evidence is Buck’s apartment has been removed–to reexamine his death.”
A number of black male sex workers have stepped forward with apparent photographic evidence that Buck was one of their clients. Each one separately told the same story: Not only did Buck have a fetish for black men, but he was known in West Hollywood’s gay community as someone paying top dollar for the company of 20-something black escorts.
But only after injecting them with drugs.
U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney’s refusal on Wednesday to dismiss the case is a “huge victory” for Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, plaintiff’s attorney Hussain Turk said.
“The court generously ruled that Ms. Nixon may rewrite portions of her claims against the county so that they more clearly describe the constitutional civil rights laws that the county violated when it failed to properly investigate Gemmel Moore’s death because of his race,” Turk alleged.
If convicted on all criminal charges, Buck faces a possible maximum sentence of five years and eight months in state prison.
