CommentsLGBTQ NATION - Ed Buck, the gay white millionaire on trial for the deaths of two Black men, has been found guilty on all nine felony counts.
Buck escaped justice for years despite his well-documented fetish for injecting methamphetamine into vulnerable men for sexual gratification.
Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean both died at Buck’s house. But activists say that his wealth protected him from consequences. He was charged with the deaths of both men, running a drug den, and enticing others to travel for prostitution.
Buck was found guilty on all charges and will most likely spend the rest of his life in prison – in part due to activist Jasmyne Cannick’s nonstop advocacy on behalf of the victims and their families.
Investigators determined that Buck had tied down and injected several individuals with methamphetamine and other drugs; hundreds of videos of Buck sexually abusing various men some of whom were unconscious, hurling racial slurs at them, and injecting them with drugs were found at his home.
Buck sought out men who were struggling with homelessness and addiction, paying them for sex and to inject them with meth. The man who once ran for West Hollywood City Council in 2007 and championed for Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham’s impeachment in the 1980s became known as “Dr. Kevorkian” in the last decade among the local LGBTQ and homeless communities.
In 2017, Gemmel Moore, a young, Black gay man, was found dead in Buck’s West Hollywood apartment. Investigators heard accusations that Buck was providing drugs to sex workers to watch them take them, but prosecutors declined to press charges because they didn’t believe there was enough evidence. Moore left behind a diary that documented Buck’s actions.
Photos: Gemmel Moore, Ed Buck, Timothy Dean
Cannick and others argued that the decision was politically motivated since Buck was a large contributor to Democratic politicians.
The case that eventually brought justice for the victims was prosecuted by the federal government. The conviction happened four years to the day Moore was found dead in Buck’s apartment.
In 2019, Dean died in Buck’s apartment from a drug overdose, and, again, the same prosecutor declined to press charges. Later that year another man overdosed in Buck’s apartment and said that Buck tried to keep him from getting medical attention. He escaped and Buck was later arrested in that case.
“I hope that Black gay men everywhere know that it doesn’t matter if they’re sex workers, escorts, gay, HIV+, poor, unhoused or even addicted to meth—their life matters,” Cannick tweeted after the conviction was announced. “Your life matters. We’re on each other’s teams.”
(Bil Browning is the Editor-in-Chief of LGBTQ Nation. His personal papers and LGBT activism memorabilia are included in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History archives.)
