XPost: la.general, alt.politics.media, rec.arts.tv.comedy.colbert-report   
   XPost: dc.politics   
   From: ed.buck.nailed.eric-garcetti@disney.com   
      
   Who is Ed Buck? Those who follow politics in West Hollywood know   
   him as the guy whose successful campaign for a ban on fur sales   
   helped propel City Councilmember John D’Amico into office in   
   2011. He’s also known for his tenacious digging into City Hall   
   records to make a claim that credit cards were being misused.   
   And he is known for his financial support for local, county,   
   state and national Democratic Party candidates.   
      
   Another side to Buck has come to light lately with the L.A.   
   County Sheriff’s Department announcing it is opening an   
   investigation into the death in Buck’s Laurel Avenue apartment   
   on July 27 of a young African-American man named Gemmel Moore,   
   who was a self-confessed prostitute. The L.A. County Coroner’s   
   Office had ruled the death an accident caused by an overdose of   
   methamphetamine, a highly addictive and dangerous drug that is   
   popular among some gay men. The Sheriff’s Department says that   
   drugs and drug paraphernalia were found at Buck’s apartment.   
      
   That side of Buck has drawn little comment from local political   
   figures, although the Stonewall Democratic Club, an LGBT   
   political group, last week asked Buck to step down from his   
   position on its steering committee. But it has attracted a lot   
   of attention from the right-wing media here and abroad,   
   including publications such as the Drudge Report; TruNews, a   
   Christian news site; Political VelCraft, a right-wing conspiracy   
   site, and Voat.com, a website that promotes conspiracy theories   
   such as PizzaGate. Stories on those sites call out Buck’s   
   financial support for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign,   
   his homosexuality, his alleged attraction to young African-   
   American men and his alleged drug use.   
      
   Recently LGBT African-American activists also have begun to   
   speak out, calling for an investigation into Moore’s death.   
   Ashlee Marie Preston, the transgender African-American editor of   
   “Wear Your Voice,” an online feminist publication, has written   
   about an odd experience she had with Buck. “Moore’s death is   
   centered around power dynamics, a wealthy white politico and his   
   deadly fetishization of disenfranchised black men,” Preston   
   wrote. And Jasmyne Cannick,a black communications and public   
   affairs strategist, has called out Moore’s death on her website   
   with the headline “Journal Documents How Wealthy Democratic   
   Donor Hooked Young Black Gay Man on Meth Before His Death.”   
      
   The Beginning   
      
   Edward Bernard Peter Buckmelter (he changed his last name to   
   Buck in 1983) was born into a middle-class family in   
   Steubenville, Ohio, on Aug. 24, 1954. When he was six he moved   
   with his parents, a brother and two sisters to Phoenix, Ariz.   
   “My childhood was uneventful as hell,” he said in an interview   
   with the Arizona Republic in June 1987.   
      
   Buck attended a Catholic elementary school and graduated from   
   North High School and Phoenix College. Buck has described his   
   father as a “longtime alcoholic.” As a child, Buck himself was a   
   handful according to his mother, who was interviewed in October   
   1987 by E.J. Montini of the Arizona Republic. “The dean of boys   
   had a hot line to my phone at work,” she said, speaking of   
   Buck’s high school years. “I’d answer the phone and say, ‘All   
   right, what is it this time?’”   
      
   Buck came out to his parents as gay at the age of 16 and, while   
   attending college, won a three-month internship that took him to   
   Yugoslavia. In his profile, the Arizona Republic’s Montini says   
   that a year after that Buck returned to Europe and was offered a   
   spot as an extra in a TV commercial. Buck stayed in Europe for   
   five years, living in Paris and Amsterdam, where he worked as a   
   fashion model and appeared in movies and magazines. He also   
   modeled in Japan for Wrangler jeans. Buck returned to Arizona in   
   1980 and began working for a friend as a bicycle courier.   
      
   In his interview with Montini, Buck said he worked for the   
   Arizona franchise of Rapid Information Services, a business   
   owned by a friend that provided driver’s license information to   
   insurance companies. Despite his lack of business experience,   
   and the business’s poor financial situation (his friend ran it   
   out of a one-bedroom apartment), Buck saw great potential in it.   
   A year and a half after joining and helping build the business,   
   Buck bought it out of bankruptcy for $250,000 and renamed it   
   Gopher Courier. Five years later he sold it for what he said in   
   another interview was “more than a million dollars profit.”   
      
   Very wealthy at the age of 32, Buck took risks, opening a   
      
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