Ed Buck, prominent Democrat donor, arrested, charged with running drug den after latest 'guest' overdose

Edmund DeMarche
Fox News
Wed, 18 Sep 2019 15:45 UTC

© Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

Ed Buck, shown in 2010, was charged with one count each of battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house, according to L.A. County prosecutors.

Ed Buck, a prominent Democratic Party donor, was arrested Tuesday and charged with operating a drug house after a third man reportedly suffered an overdose inside his West Hollywood home last week and survived.

Buck has faced public scrutiny after two black men died from overdoses 18 months apart inside his home. He was not charged in those cases.

Buck is due in court Wednesday to respond to three counts of battery and injecting the alleged third victim with methamphetamine on Sept. 11, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Prosecutors wrote in court papers obtained by the Times that Buck used his position of power to manipulate his victims into participating in his sexual fetishes.

"These fetishes include supplying and personally administering dangerously large doses of narcotics to his victims," the prosecutors wrote, according to the Times.

Seymour Amster, Buck's attorney, told Fox News that he would not comment on the arrest and said he is dealing with the issue. Amster has in the past defended his client and insisted that he did nothing wrong.

In July 2017, a young black man, Gemmel Moore, was found dead of a drug overdose in Buck's apartment.

An autopsy report said Moore, 26, died of a methamphetamine overdose. He was found naked on a mattress in the living room, which was littered with drug paraphernalia.

Eighteen months later, 55-year-old Timothy Dean also suffered a methamphetamine overdose. Prosecutors didn't file criminal charges, citing insufficient evidence. Activists, however, called for his arrest.

In the most recent incident, Buck allegedly brought the man to his home earlier this month and injected him with methamphetamine. About a week later, the man returned to Buck's home and was injected again and suffered an overdose, according to court documents obtained by KTLA.

Buck is accused of thwarting the man's attempt to get help. The man fled the apartment and reportedly called for help from a nearby gas station. He survived but was treated at a hospital.

Prosecutors are reportedly seeking bail of $4 million. KABC-TV of Los Angeles reported that he faces up to five years and eight months in state prison if convicted.

Comment: More from the Los Angeles Times:

Moore's mother, LaTisha Nixon of Texas, has questioned whether Buck's ties to elected officials and differences in race and class influenced the investigation. Buck, who is 65 and white, is a longtime political donor, onetime West Hollywood City Council candidate and a well-known figure in LGBTQ political circles. Moore had been homeless and had worked as an escort.

In February, Nixon filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Buck, alleging he was a drug dealer who injected her son with a fatal dose of crystal methamphetamine.

"If the dead body of a blond-haired, blue-eyed white man was found in the home of an older black man, he'd be lucky to even make it to the police station alive," Hussain Turk, an attorney for Nixon, said in a statement at the time of the lawsuit's filing.

About 9 p.m. Tuesday, about a dozen onlookers gathered across the street from Buck's apartment building, as police redirected cars on the blocked street. It was a quiet scene, with no protest chants or signs.

"Today is like a celebration for us," said Jasmyne Cannick as she spoke to those gathered.

Cannick, a political consultant and spokeswoman for Moore's mother, said she was giving a speech in Leimert Park on Tuesday evening when she started getting calls from Buck's neighbors saying he was being arrested.

She pulled up to Buck's West Hollywood apartment building just as a police car was driving away.

Cannick has said she believed Buck got special treatment because of his political activism and fundraising for Democratic candidates, a charge officials have denied, and because he was white and Moore and Dean were black.

"I feel vindicated for all the people who said it was never going to happen," she said. "I feel really good for all the young men he took advantage of because they didn't feel like anyone took them seriously, like their lives weren't important enough for anyone to really care about."

Cannick said she called Moore's mother and Dean's sister to tell them about the arrest, and "we were all crying."

"We're just completely ecstatic," she said. "Black gay men's lives matter. The whole black LGBT community is going to be celebrating this evening because our lives matter, and people need to know that. Even if we're sex workers, even if we're on drugs, even if we're homeless, we're still part of the black community, still part of the LGBT community."

How is it that this screamingly obvious predator was allowed to roam free for so long? Did Democrat party connections have something to do with it?

© Facebook

Ed Buck, 62 (pictured, right, with Hillary Clinton in June 2015)

• LA cops investigating prominent Democratic donor after gay prostitute found dead at his home
• Second body found in home of Democratic megadonor Ed Buck in California
• No charges: Dead male prostitute, piles of meth found in Clinton high-profile-donor's home