Ed Buck told his neighbors that the steady stream of young black men leaving his West Hollywood apartment was social work clients. What really happened behind closed doors, which he referred to as the “gates of hell,” was far more sinister. The men did not need Buck’s help – they had to be rescued by him, federal prosecutors in Los Angeles said. Some barely escaped with their lives. Two men did not. Buck, 67, a wealthy gay donor to Democrats, LGBTQs and animal rights, was sentenced by a U.S. District Court on Thursday to 30 years in federal prison for injecting two men with lethal methamphetamine doses as part of a fatal. Prosecutors seeking life in prison said Buck did not care about the life that even after the two deaths in his apartment, he did not stop paying men to come to his house and inject them with heavy doses of methamphetamine. One man overdosed twice in a week. “This defendant attempted vulnerable victims – men who were addicted to drugs and often homeless – to fuel an obsession that led to death and misery,” said U.S. Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison. “Sir. Buck continues to be a clear threat to society.” Buck was convicted in July of distributing methamphetamine resulting in the deaths of Gemmel Moore in 2017 and Timothy Dean in 2019. He was also convicted of four counts of distributing methamphetamine, two counts of luring men to travel to public lines for prostitution and a count of keeping a drug well. Buck managed to escape arrest for more than two years after Moore’s death, and members of the family and community led by political strategist Jasmyne Cannick complained that he had escaped persecution for wealth, political affiliation and race. He has donated more than $ 500,000 since 2000 to primarily democratic causes. Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, joined Cannick and many other friends and family members of the deceased to ask the judge for the maximum sentence. Nixon, a certified nurse assistant who said she had prayed and comforted countless dying, collapsed as she pondered the way her eldest child had died. “All I can think about is how my son died naked on a mattress without love around him,” Nixon said. “Let no one hold his hand or say good things to him.” Defense attorney Mark Werksman served a 10-year term – half of Buck’s mandatory minimum 20 years and well under 25 years in the watchdog department. He said Buck’s sexual abuse as a child and the health problems that led to his drug addiction were mitigating factors. He said prosecutors had described Buck as a “sociopathic sexual predator holding a syringe and a sexually abusive man who chases homeless drug addicts and kills them by overdosing on methamphetamine.” “But there is a second Ed Buck, a redeemable, a worthy, a valuable Ed Buck who deserves the compassion and mercy of this court,” Werksman said. Buck made his first public remarks since his arrest in September 2019, apologizing for “my involvement in the tragic deaths” of Moore and Dean, whom he said were friends he loved. In a husky voice, he said he did not cause their deaths, but expressed his condolences to their families – something they said he never did after their deaths. Buck, who worked as a model and then made a small fortune selling a company in Arizona that saved him from bankruptcy, said he tried to live a good life dedicated to political goals that would make his world a better place. His political activism began in 1987 with efforts to oust Republican Arizona Gov. Evan Meham, who was eventually convicted in a referral trial and ousted from office. Buck said he started an AIDS information organization in the 1980s, marched on gay and human rights, and supported a ban on fur sales in West Hollywood. “Look at the good I did and the good I can do, not even the horrible caricature the government painted me of as an ax-wielding assassin,” Buck said. “I’m not him.” Judge Christina Snyder said the case was one of the most difficult and tragic in her presidency. He said Buck’s “horrific crimes” were reprehensible and more than just an accident. U.S. Assistant Attorney General Chelsea Norrell has opposed the 30-year sentence, arguing that the mandatory minimum sentence for each death is 40 years. “It basically gets a murder and a murder 50% off,” Norell said. Dean and Moore’s family members said they were disappointed he was not sentenced to life in prison, but were happy Buck was leaving for a long time. They said his apology came too late to seem sincere. “It’s not love when you kill someone,” said Dean’s sister, Joan Campbell. “It simply came to our notice then. “But I do not believe it and I do not buy it.” Even after Dean’s death, Buck remained fearless, Norrell said. Detained in a hotel to avoid police, he injected Dane Brown with methamphetamine “blows”. Brown, who was homeless, later moved to Buck’s apartment, where he was injected most of the day and often several times a day. On September 4, 2019, after Buck shot him three times in double doses, Brown was hospitalized for an overdose. He had five times as much meth in his system as Moore and Dean had when they died, prosecutors said. Brown returned less than a week later and Buck injected him three times. Brown said he was overdosing again. He was exhausted and weak, but Buck did not call an ambulance. “I can not run, I can not move and it is as if all my energy is exhausted,” Brown recalled outside the court on Thursday. It was then that he heard the voice of his late mother telling him to get up. “At that last moment, just as I was giving up and closing my eyes, I heard a voice,” Brown said. “It’s like he lit a fire and told me to go out now.” Brown managed to go to a nearby gas station and was taken to hospital. It was that incident that eventually led to Buck’s arrest. If he had not been able to leave Buck’s apartment, Brown would have died there, as Moore and Dean did. Our Morning and Afternoon newsletters are compiled by Globe editors, giving you a brief overview of the day’s most important headlines. Register today.
