Ed Buck’s friends tell how Democratic donor got addicted to drugs and reveal his love of black men
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A man who died of a drug overdose in the apartment of Ed Buck left behind a diary in which he blames the Democratic donor for his descent into methamphetamine addiction.
Buck has pleaded not guilty to distributing methamphetamine resulting in the deaths of Timothy Dean in January 2019 and Gemmel Moore in 2017.
Federal prosecutors say Buck, 65, preyed on vulnerable gay men and pressured them to let him inject them with drugs as part of a sexual ritual. Buck is also charged with providing meth to three more men, including one who overdosed.
Activist Jasmyne Cannick, who uncovered new evidence in the case and pushed for two years to bring charges against Buck, provided Moore’s diary to The New York Times.
In one entry, Moore is said to have written: ‘I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that. Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth it was very painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted to the pain and fetish/fantasy.
‘My life is at an all-time high right now & I mean that from all ways. I ended up back at Buck house again and got manipulated into slamming again. I even went to the point where I was forced to doing 4 within a 2day period. This man is crazy and it’s sad. Will I ever get help?’
Ed Buck’s former friends have revealed how the Democratic donor became addicted to drugs and detailed his love of black men ahead of a court appearance over two deaths at his West Hollywood apartment. Buck is pictured arriving for a campaign rally in Hollywood, California, in 2010
Buck appears in court on Thursday in Los Angeles
‘Slamming’ is a slang term used among gay men for injecting drugs such as mephedrone, GHB, or crystal meth.
In Moore’s final entry on December 3, 2016, he is said to have written: ‘If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself, but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.’
Buck’s lawyers say the diary entries are ‘unverified writing’.
Former acquaintances and friends have Buck’s love of black men as well as how his personality changed after he got addicted to drugs.
One former friend, known only as M, told the paper Buck had told M.’s then husband: ‘That’s a nice-looking black man you’ve got on your arm.’
After commenting that another black man they had seen was his ‘type’ Buck is said to have replied to M.: ‘Yeah, but I like ’em stupid.’
The Democratic donor has pleaded not guilty to distributing methamphetamine resulting in the deaths of Timothy Dean, right, in January 2019 and Gemmel Moore, left, in 2017
Former friend Charlie Harrison said: ‘Buck always had a penchant for black guys. There was one guy he spent a lot of time with, but back then it was, as Buck said, mostly “meaningful relationships by the hour”.’
After Buck was accused of using racist language Harrison said: ‘No one on the planet, except Martin Luther King, put their 100 percent behind fighting bigotry more than Buck. It’s equivalent to calling Martin Luther King prejudiced.’
But Ryan Gierach, a longtime neighbor of Buck, said ‘there is another side’ to him.
Four-time mayor of West Hollywood John Duran said Buck’s personality changed when he started taking drugs.
Duran said: ‘Ed’s story is one I’ve seen happen to many individuals in West Hollywood, gay men who end up making the attachment of sex to meth, and then meth takes over and consumes their lives.
‘When you saw Ed after 2013, he was agitated, losing weight, being angry and amplified at council meetings. Missing appointments or not showing up. These are all the symptoms of somebody under the influence of meth.’
Ed Buck with Hillary Clinton in one of his Facebook photos, posted in September, 2015
Activist Jasmyne Cannick is said to hold the diary written by Moore before his death. She has has now shown the physical book to Cannick, who uncovered new evidence in the case and pushed for two years for prosecutors to bring charges against Buck, had previously not shown it to reporters
Four-time mayor of West Hollywood John Duran said Buck’s personality changed when he started taking drugs
Buck ran unsuccessfully in 2007 for City Council in West Hollywood, which is known for its large LGBTQ community. He has donated at least $340,000 to Democratic campaigns and causes over many years.
He is said to have told friends he made $1 million after flipping a company that sold driver’s-license data to auto insurers.
Christopher Darden, best known for prosecuting O.J. Simpson, is representing him.
Wealthy Democrat donor Buck was arrested in September 2019 after a third man narrowly escaped death when he overdosed in his West Hollywood apartment.
According to prosecutors, Buck was known among the Los Angeles homeless community as ‘Dr Kevorkian’ for his sick fetishes, including ‘role playing and fantasy to inject people with methamphetamine.’
LaTisha Nixon, the mother of Gemmel Moore, who was found dead from an overdose at Ed Buck’s apartment at a vigil in 2018
The complaint, filed in a Los Angeles federal court September, says witnesses told a DEA agent that Buck ‘paid Moore in money and drugs in exchange for Moore to engage in sexual activities with Buck,’ and flew the young man to LA from Texas.
In July 2017 Moore was found ‘wearing only white socks’ and ‘unresponsive on the living room floor in Buck’s residence and was pronounced dead after the police arrived,’ the DEA agent wrote.
Dean was also found on the apartment floor in January 2019 ‘wearing only white underwear’, with two rubber rings around his scrotum and penis, the document said.
The federal complaint reveals that Buck ‘continued to solicit men for sex and drug use’ after Dean’s death, as recently as July 2019, according to other alleged victims interviewed by the DEA.
He has been denied bail and is being held in a downtown Los Angeles jail. His trial had been delayed until next year.
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