Prominent Democratic Donor’s Trial Focusing On ‘Injection Fetish’ After Black Men Overdose In Apartment
ZeroHedge.com
A prominent Democratic donor who was nominated by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to be an Electoral College elector in 2016 lured black men to his apartment for ‘party and play’ – where he is accused of injecting them with methamphetamine and other drugs before two of them died.
Buck was arrested in September of 2019, after a 37-year-old black man became the second person to overdose at Buck’s residence, and was charged battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house.
“Buck’s preference was to personally inject victims, and he pressured or incentivized victims to let him do so, sometimes offering large cash bonuses to coerce a victim to agree to an injection or additional injections,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. “Other times, Buck simply injected victims while they were unconscious,” according to the Associated Press.
Buck, 66, has given over $500,000 primarily to Democratic politicians and causes since 2000. He has pleaded not guilty to nine felonies that could put him in prison for life if convicted.
Prosecutors accused Buck of injecting the second victim with two large doses of methamphetamine at his apartment on September 11, 2019, causing the man to overdose according to the indictment. After Buck refused to help the man and thwarted his attempts to get help, the man was able to flee the apartment and call 911 from a nearby gas station from which he was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
The arrest of Buck in 2019 marked a turning point for activists who rallied outside his West Hollywood apartment and pressured law enforcement to act after Gemmel Moore died on his floor in 2017. Even after Timothy Dean died 18 months later, it took another nine months and the near-death of another overdose victim before Buck was finally arrested in September 2019.
Family members of Moore, 26, and Dean, 55, plan to speak before the trial Tuesday outside U.S. District Court, said Jasmyne Cannick, a political strategist who has helped lead the charge to bring Buck to justice. Cannick and others complained that Buck escaped prosecution because of wealth, political ties and race.
Buck, a wealthy white man who was active in gay and animal rights issues, exploited vulnerable men — most of them Black — paying them to come to his home to use drugs and engage in sex play, prosecutors said. Many were destitute drug users who often worked as prostitutes to support their habit. –AP
According to prosecutors, Buck provided fatal doses of meth to Moore and Dean.
Notably, the Daily Mail documented a young black man with a bandage on his arm visiting Buck’s apartment on the date of the second overdose.
Hundreds of photographs of men in compromising positions were found in Buck’s apartment according to court records.
Prosecutors characterized Buck as a “violent, dangerous sexual predator,” who uses drugs, money and shelter to lure black men struggling with addiction and homelessness into his home where he “manipulates them into participating in his sexual fetishes,” according to KTLA. Accordingly, his bail has been requested at $4 million by prosecutors, who argued that he is a threat to the community.
The 65-year-old gay rights activist was notably given a pass after the first two men died in his apartment in what were ruled accidents.
The first man, 26-year-old Gemmel Moore, died on July 27, 2017. Prosecutors cited insufficient evidence in declining to press charges against Buck in connection with Moore’s death, which was ruled an accidental methamphetamine overdose.
A second man, 55-year-old Timothy Dean, died of methamphetamine and alcohol toxicity on Jan. 7. Dean’s autopsy report said he died at least 15 minutes before anyone called 911. That death was also ruled accidental. –KTLA
“The full scope of his consistent malicious behavior is unknown,” said prosecutors, adding “It is only a matter of time before another one of these vulnerable young men dies of an overdose.”
Read more on Buck’s alleged behavior here.
Buck has been a prominent figure in Democratic circles, associating with and donating to the likes of Democrats Ted Lieu, the Clintons, Adam Schiff and former California Governor Jerry Brown.
@RepAdamSchiff & Ed Buck just hangin’ out pic.twitter.com/5ipVwq94Mv
— – simply balance – (@Synergist_Exp) September 18, 2019
Buck’s defense team contends that all the men were at Buck’s apartment on their free will, and that Moore and Dean did not die from a meth overdose.
“Many of them appeared to be drug addicts by their own admission,” said defense attorney Ludlow B. Creary II. “They were living according to their lifestyle, and Ed Buck did not create their lifestyle.”
According to the report, “Neighbors are expected to testify to a constant flow of men coming and going from Buck’s apartment that only ebbed after the deaths before eventually picking back up. One neighbor reported to investigators that Buck told him he was a social worker helping the men.”
Several men are expected to testify about Buck’s “compulsion to pump drugs into others regardless of the consequences,” prosecutors said.
Some told investigators they believe Buck gave them the powerful sedative known as the date-rape drug, which left them unconscious.
One man, who said he was paid $300 as an escort, said Buck gave him what he said was meth, but it immobilized him on the floor for more than six hours. Buck told the man to leave, but he couldn’t move. When Buck approached him with a buzzing power saw, the man said a surge of adrenalin drove him get to his feet and escape.
Although Dean died in January 2019, it wasn’t until September of that year that Buck was arrested after a man overdosed twice in one week.
Will a clearly broken Buck be able to mount a successful defense? Or will the Democratic activist spend the rest of his life behind bars?
