XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.homosexuality, sac.politics   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns   
   From: more.democrat.nambla.degenerates@disney.com   
      
   Los Angeles — Even after two men were found dead in his   
   California apartment, Ed Buck did not stop injecting gay men   
   with walloping doses of methamphetamine.   
      
   Federal prosecutors said Buck's unrelenting fervor to satisfy a   
   fetish by preying on vulnerable men, often young and Black, is   
   reason enough to keep him behind bars for the rest of his life.   
      
   Buck, 67, a big dollar donor to Democratic, LGBTQ and animal   
   rights causes, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Thursday in   
   U.S. District Court in Los Angeles for providing fatal doses of   
   drugs, operating a drug den and enticing men to travel for   
   prostitution.   
      
   "Buck used his money and privilege to exploit the wealth and   
   power imbalances between himself and his victims, who were   
   unhoused, destitute, and/or struggling with addiction,"   
   Assistant U.S. Attorney Chelsea Norell said in a court filing.   
   "He spent thousands of dollars on drugs and party and play   
   sessions that destroyed lives and bred insidious addictions."   
      
   Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence for Buck, but his   
   defense attorneys sought a decade behind bars, saying he was   
   sexually abused as a child and health problems led to his drug   
   addiction.   
      
   Attorneys Mark Werksman and Elizabeth Little said the judge   
   should go below the 25-year sentence recommended by probation   
   officials that would allow rehabilitation and treatment and   
   "would be much preferable to relegating him to death in prison."   
      
   Buck, a wealthy white man who worked as a male model and then   
   made a small fortune selling an Arizona company he rescued from   
   bankruptcy, helped lead a 1987 campaign to recall Republican   
   Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham, who was ultimately convicted in an   
   impeachment trial and kicked out of office.   
      
   Buck retired at 32 to the city of West Hollywood, known for its   
   large LGBTQ community, where he lived in a rent-controlled   
   apartment and donated over $500,000 to mostly Democratic causes   
   since 2000.   
      
   His troubles began when Gemmel Moore was found dead in his   
   apartment on July 27, 2017. Buck had flown Moore from Texas that   
   morning for drug use and he was dead by sunset.   
      
   Moore's mother, LaTisha Nixon, said in a letter to the court   
   that she hoped Buck would get the maximum term for ruining her   
   life and the hurt it has caused her family. Nixon, a certified   
   nursing assistant, said she could not comfort her son the way   
   she has for countless dying people.   
      
   "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."   
      
   Community members and activists rallied outside Buck's   
   apartment, calling for his arrest, but he remained free. Family   
   members and Jasmyne Cannick, a political strategist, complained   
   that Buck escaped prosecution because of wealth, political ties   
   and race.   
      
   While he was under investigation in Moore's death, Buck   
   continued to pay men so he could inject them. He texted one man,   
   Timothy Dean, to express his annoyance over the investigation.   
      
   About 18 months after Moore's death, deputies were called to   
   Buck's apartment on Jan. 7, 2019, to investigate Dean's death.   
      
   Even after Dean's death, Buck was not arrested.   
      
   "Buck's lack of remorse is aptly captured in one image: As he   
   was hiding out in a hotel, evading arrest for Gemmel Moore's   
   death, he was injecting Dane Brown, another young Black man,   
   with back-to-back slams of methamphetamine," Norell said.   
      
   Brown was homeless and later moved into Buck's apartment, where   
   he was injected with meth most days and often several times a   
   day.   
      
   He was hospitalized on September 4, 2019, after Buck shot him up   
   three times with back-to-back doses. He had five times the meth   
   in his system that Moore and Dean had when they died,   
   prosecutors said.   
      
   Brown returned less than a week later and felt himself   
   overdosing after Buck injected him three times with meth. Like   
   other victims who testified against Buck at trial last summer,   
   Brown was nearly immobilized. He said Buck wouldn't help him.   
      
   "Brown sat on the couch, resigned to the same fate as Moore and   
   Dean, when he heard his deceased mother cry out to him, 'Get up,   
   Dane,'" Norell said.   
      
   Brown managed to get out of the apartment and made it to a   
   nearby gas station, where he called for help and was taken to a   
   hospital. His harrowing account of being revived twice finally   
   led to Buck's arrest.   
      
      
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