LOS ANGELES (AP) — Even after two men were found dead in his California apartment, Ed Buck did not stop injecting gay men with walloping doses of methamphetamine.
Federal prosecutors said Buck's unrelenting fervor to satisfy a fetish by preying on vulnerable men, often young and Black, is reason enough to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.
Buck, 67, a big dollar donor to Democratic, LGBTQ and animal rights causes, faces sentencing Thursday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for providing fatal doses of drugs, operating a drug den and enticing men to travel for prostitution.
“Buck used his money and privilege to exploit the wealth and power imbalances between himself and his victims, who were unhoused, destitute, and/or struggling with addiction,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Norell said in a court filing. “He spent thousands of dollars on drugs and party and play sessions that destroyed lives and bred insidious addictions.”
Defense lawyers are asking a judge to be more lenient because Buck was sexually abused as a child and developed his drug addiction as the result of a medical condition.
Attorneys Mark Werksman and Elizabeth Little said the judge should go below the 25-year sentence recommended by probation officials that would allow rehabilitation and treatment and “would be much preferable to relegating him to death in prison.”
Probation officials also recommended a $1 million fine, though prosecutors said it should be $400,000 to leave money for lawsuits filed by the families of his survivors.
Buck, a wealthy white man who worked as a male model and then made a small fortune selling an Arizona company he rescued from bankruptcy, helped lead a 1987 campaign to recall Republican Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, who was ultimately convicted in an impeachment trial and kicked out of office.
Buck retired at 32 to the city of West Hollywood, known for its large LGBTQ community, where he lived in a rent-controlled apartment and donated over $500,000 to mostly Democratic causes since 2000.
His troubles began when Gemmel Moore was found dead in his apartment on July 27, 2017. Buck had flown Moore from Texas that morning for drug use and he was dead by sunset.
Moore's mother, LaTisha Nixon, said in a letter to the court that she hoped Buck would get the maximum term for ruining her life and the hurt it has caused her family. Nixon, a certified nursing assistant, said she could not comfort her son the way she has for countless dying people.
“All I can think about is how my son died naked on a mattress with no love around him,” Nixon said. “No one to hold his hand or tell him good things.”
Community members and activists rallied outside Buck's apartment, calling for his arrest, but he remained free. Family members and Jasmyne Cannick, a political strategist, complained that Buck escaped prosecution because of wealth, political ties and race.
https://omaha.com/news/national/prosecutors-seek-life-for-political-donors-fatal-fetish/article_7be0bf34-b762-592a-9c71-7cf390bdd316.html