Dem Donor Ed Buck Sentenced to 30 Years in Prison for Murdering Gay Black Men
Former male model and Democrat donor Ed Buck was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison Thursday after being convicted of two counts of murder and seven counts of narcotics distribution. Buck, 67, preyed upon gay black men, many of them homeless, in his West Hollywood neighborhood, paying them for sex and injecting them with methamphetamines during the encounters. Two of those men died after Buck administered fatal doses; another man, now known as Dane Brown, “was repeatedly injected by Buck but survived and his harrowing account of being revived twice finally led to Buck’s arrest in 2019.” Brown’s encounters with Buck occurred after the two deaths Buck was eventually convicted of murder in occurred, but then-District Attorney Jackie Lacey had declined to press charges due to what she described as a lack of evidence.
Brown’s story showed that Buck was methodical and callous. As victim Gemmel Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, alleged in a wrongful death civil suit against the creep, it seemed he had a “Tuskegee Experiment-like fetish.”
Before Buck’s arrest in September 2019, Brown told investigators he had been homeless when he met Buck on Adam4Adam, a gay dating and escort site, and moved in with him for part of summer 2019, where Buck had injected him daily for five weeks.
Brown overdosed twice in one week. After his second overdose, Brown said Buck refused to call an ambulance and Brown was forced to call 911 at a nearby gas station.
When Buck was arrested prosecutors argued for a high bail, saying that “the full scope of his malicious behavior is unknown” and characterizing him as “a violent sexual predator who preys on men struggling with addiction and homelessness.”
Jurors in the trial saw extremely graphic evidence detailing the “party and play” sessions that occurred at Buck’s apartment, and apparently it was so graphic that the judge was afraid jurors might need therapy after the trial:
The sordid details of what took place in the apartment are laid bare in hundreds of videos and photos Buck took of the men smoking or injecting meth naked or in the white underwear that he had them try on for his pleasure.
Videos shown at the trial are so graphic that U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder urged prosecutors to be careful how aggressively they present evidence that could traumatize jurors.
“It may well be that we offer counseling to them at the end of the case,” she said.
Despite those comments, Judge Snyder had trouble deciding upon a sentence:
Judge Christina A. Snyder said the sentencing decision was difficult as she balanced the philanthropic work Buck had done in his life supporting LGBTQ and animal rights causes with the “horrific crimes” that she called “more than just an accident.”
Buck’s attorneys asked for a 10-year sentence, lower than the minimum of 20 years, while prosecutors asked for life. At 67, the likelihood that Buck ever leaves prison alive is slim.
Buck donated more than $500,000 to Democrats, mostly in California, between 2000 and the time of his arrest. The biggest recipient of his largesse is Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), who received $26,500 from Buck, $18,000 of which went to Lieu’s congressional campaigns. Buck also donated to the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Buck still faces state drug charges.
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