Political donor sentenced to 30 years in prison for fetish deaths

Ed Buck, 67, a wealthy gay white donor to Democratic, LGBTQ and animal rights causes, was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court to 30 years in federal prison for injecting two men with lethal doses of methamphetamine as part of a fetish that turned fatal.

Prosecutors, who sought a life term, said Buck had such disregard for life that even after the two deaths in his apartment, he did not stop paying men to come to his home and injecting them with walloping doses of methamphetamine. One man overdosed twice in the course of a week.

“This defendant preyed upon vulnerable victims — men who were drug-dependent and often without homes — to feed an obsession that led to death and misery,” United States Attorney Tracy L. Wilkison said.

“Mr. Buck continues to pose a clear danger to society.”

Buck was convicted in July of distribution of methamphetamine resulting in the deaths of Gemmel Moore in 2017 and Timothy Dean in 2019. He was also convicted of four counts of meth distribution, two counts of enticing men to travel across state lines for prostitution and a count of maintaining a drug den.

Buck managed to avoid arrest for more than two years after Moore’s death and family and community members led by political strategist Jasmyne Cannick complained that he escaped prosecution because of wealth, political ties and race. He donated more than $500,000 since 2000 to mainly Democratic causes.

Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, joined Cannick and several other friends and family members of the deceased to ask the judge for the maximum sentence. Nixon, a certified nursing assistant who said she had prayed with and comforted countless dying people, broke down as she thought of the way her oldest child died.

“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.”

Defense lawyer Mark Werksman sought a 10-year term — half of the mandatory minimum of 20 years Buck faced and well below the 25 years recommended by the probation department. He said Buck’s sexual abuse as a child and health problems that led to his drug addiction were mitigating factors.

He said prosecutors had cast Buck as a “sociopathic syringe-wielding sexual predator and sexual deviant who preys on homeless drug-addicted male prostitutes and kills them by recklessly overdosing them on methamphetamine.”

“But there’s a second Ed Buck, a redeemable, a worthy, a valuable Ed Buck who deserves this court’s compassion and mercy,” Werksman said.

Buck made his first public remarks since his arrest in September 2019, apologizing for “my part in the tragic deaths” of Moore and Dean, whom he said were friends he loved. In a husky voice, he said he had not caused their deaths but expressed 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 an Arizona company he rescued from bankruptcy, said he tried to live a good life devoted to political causes that would make his world a better place.

His political activism began with efforts in 1987 to recall Republican Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, who was ultimately convicted in an impeachment trial and kicked out of office. Buck said he started an AIDS information organization in the 1980s, marched for gay and human rights and championed a ban on fur sales in West Hollywood.

Judge Christina Snyder said the case was one of the most difficult and tragic ones she had presided over. She said Buck’s “horrific crimes” were reprehensible and more than just an accident.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Norell objected to the 30-year sentence, arguing that the mandatory minimum sentences for each death add up to 40 years.

“He is effectively getting one kill and one kill 50% off,” Norell said.

Family members of Dean and Moore said they were disappointed he didn’t get a life sentence but were happy Buck was going away for a long time. They said his apology had come too late to seem sincere.

“That’s not love when you kill someone,” said Dean’s sister, Joann Campbell.

“That was just something he was saying … to get some sympathy from the judge. But I don’t believe and buy any of it.”