Ed Buck is now sitting on nine felony charges.
According to NBC News, Ed Buck, who is a well-known donor to Democratic politicians such as Hilary Clinton, has been charged with four additional felonies. A federal grand jury added two charges of enticing individuals to travel interstate to engage in prostitution, one charge of distributing methamphetamine, and one count of “using his residence for the purpose of distributing narcotics such as methamphetamine, and the sedatives gamma hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) and clonazepam,” according to a Justice Department press release. These new charges are then added to the five drug and prostitution charges that Buck has already received.
The Ed Buck has been developing since 2018 when 26-year-old Gemmel Moore died within Buck’s home. Afterward, a coroner’s report found that Moore died of a methamphetamine overdose. The police investigation then discovered Moore’s journal, found below, which describes Buck getting Moore addicted to drugs.
“I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that. Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth it was very painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted to the pain and fetish/fantasy.”
“My life is at an alltime [sic] high right now & I mean that from all ways. I ended up back at Buck [sic] house again and got munipulated [sic] into slamming again. I even went to the point where I was forced to doing 4 within a 2day [sic] period. This man is crazy and its [sic] sad. Will I ever get help?”
His last entry, in Dec. 3, 2016, goes: “If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.”
After investigating the situation further, the LA police department decided there wasn’t enough evidence to rule Moore’s death as a murder.
“There isn’t anything suspicious about it,” Lt. Edward Ramirez said at the time. “There’s nothing pointing toward death at the hands of another, so it’s not something we would do any follow-up on.”
In response to the police choosing not to go forward with the case, Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, advocated for Ed Buck’s arrest. The investigation then picked up steam in 2019 when a second man was found dead in Ed Buck’s home. 55-year-old Timothy Dean also died of a drug overdose. As Buck’s neighbor told the Daily Mail, Dean stood outside Buck’s house an hour before he died. As she told news reporters, Dean didn’t appear intoxicated when she saw him.
“He was fine, he did not seem inebriated. He wasn’t stumbling, he was buzzing the building, he was on his phone,” she said.
After Timothy Dean’s death, Ed Buck was arrested and later indicted.
“Buck exerted power over his victims, often 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,” the initial indictment in October alleged.
Now, Buck has four additional felony charges added to his case. The high-profile political donor is also being held in federal custody without bond.
The case continues.
Source: NBC News, the Daily Mail, New York Daily News, New York Post,
