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https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/01/09/17/8321528-6573905-image- a-6_1547055571738.jpg

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/01/09/17/8321230-6573905-image- m-12_1547055672514.jpg

Political activist Ed Buck pleaded not guilty Thursday to
federal drug charges in connection with two overdose deaths at
his West Hollywood home and three additional counts of
distributing methamphetamine.

Buck, a wealthy Democratic donor, was first charged in federal
court in September with providing methamphetamine that led to
the 2017 overdose death of Gemmel Moore. He was then indicted
this month in connection with Moore’s death and the January 2019
death of Timothy Dean. He also faces three additional counts of
distributing methamphetamine.

When asked by Federal Magistrate Frederick Mumm how he would
plead, Buck, dressed in a beige jail shirt, paused for a moment
and replied, “I am working on one hearing aid, not guilty.”

Buck also acknowledged having read the indictment against him
during the short appearance at the downtown Los Angeles federal
court building. His next hearing was set for Nov. 26. He will
remain in custody.

He is set to be arraigned Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court
on state charges, including operating a drug house.

Family members of Dean and Moore met for the first time before
seeing Buck in court Thursday.

“My heart aches but we are at that point where we will get
justice for my brother,” Dean’s sister Joyce Jackson said. “I
just want closure ... and we are moving in the direction to get
closure .... I cannot forgive him.”

Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, called Buck a “monster.”

“Seeing Ed Buck in court today enraged me. He pretends to be
feeble,” she said.

Nixon said the deaths could have been avoided if law enforcement
has acted sooner.

“We have been in this fight for a long time. It has been a long
time coming,” she said. “I am grateful the feds came in and took
this case .... I feel the Dean family’s pain.”

Family and activists have long called on local prosecutors to
take action against Buck, 65, and heavily criticized Los Angeles
County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey when she declined to bring
homicide charges against Buck in connection with Moore’s death
last year. Many have argued that Buck’s status and privilege,
coupled with the fact that his purported victims were largely
sex workers or homeless, had insulated him from prosecution.

Federal prosecutors accuse Buck of “targeting vulnerable
individuals who were destitute, homeless and/or struggled with
drug addiction, in order to exploit the relative wealth and
power imbalance between them.”

According to the indictment, Buck met many of his victims on the
dating website Adam4Adam, but he also sometimes used a
“recruiter” who “scouted men” on his behalf. The recruiter was
not identified or described further in the court documents.

If convicted in either Moore’s or Dean’s death, Buck faces a
minimum of 20 years in federal prison. Buck’s attorney, Seymour
Amster, has repeatedly declined requests for comment.

“We are extremely happy about these charges. We are all sorry
that Timothy Dean had to lose his life,” said Jasmyne Cannick,
one of the most prominent activists in the push for Buck’s
arrest. “The federal prosecutors finally delivered what the [Los
Angeles County] district attorney could not…. It is extremely
gratifying after all these years to see this.”

Buck has been under scrutiny since July 2017, when sheriff’s
deputies responded to his apartment and found Moore’s body. The
26-year-old’s death was ruled accidental, but activists and
Moore’s family immediately began to pressure the L.A. County
Sheriff’s Department to take a closer look at the incident.

Nixon accused Buck of forcing her son, an escort who had been
homeless, to do drugs against his will. In a journal, Moore also
accused Buck of getting him hooked on crystal meth in the first
place.

Lacey’s office declined to charge Buck with manslaughter or drug
charges in connection with Moore’s death, citing insufficient
evidence and an “inadmissible search and seizure,” records show.
Law enforcement leaders have never explained what, if anything,
illegal was done by responding sheriff’s deputies on the night
of Moore’s death.

Buck became a target of law enforcement again earlier this year
when Dean, a 55-year-old fashion consultant and avid basketball
player, died of a drug overdose at his home. The case prompted a
second homicide investigation from the Sheriff’s Department.
Lacey has said Buck remains a “suspect” in both Moore’s and
Dean’s deaths but charged him only with operating a drug den and
battery after his arrest last month.

Court documents made public in September showed Buck had engaged
in dangerous sexual fetishes for years. Prosecutors accused him
of manipulating homeless men and sex workers to do drugs for his
pleasure, often at risk to their own safety. Several claimed
Buck injected them while they were sleeping, and two described
incidents that amounted to allegations of sexual misconduct,
according to court records.

At least four men came forward and told Sheriff’s Department
investigators about Buck’s habits between March and May of this
year, according to the federal criminal complaint charging Buck
in Moore’s death. Two of them accused Buck of injecting them
with drugs against their will. Given the fact that two men had
already died at Buck’s home and law enforcement was aware of his
alleged dangerous behavior, legal experts have questioned why
Lacey’s office did not seek to charge him with a lesser drug
offense before September.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-10/political- activist-ed-buck-federal-drug-charges

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