XPost: la.general, alt.politics.media, rec.arts.tv.comedy.colbert-report   
   XPost: dc.politics   
   From: eric.garcetti.black.penis.eater.democrats@disney.com   
      
   Although alleged victims’ families and their supporters warned   
   about California Democratic activist and megadonor Ed Buck for   
   two years as they tried to get prosecutors to bring charges,   
   their pleas weren’t heard.   
      
   Prosecutors declined to bring charges a year after a first man   
   died in Buck's apartment, but another investigation began after   
   a second man died. In July, deputies approached a federal-state   
   task force on opioid overdoses, which agreed to take the case,   
   Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Kyle Mori said.   
      
   Attorney Ambrosio Rodriguez, a former Riverside County   
   prosecutor, said it was unusual for federal prosecutors to take   
   over a state investigation. He said he didn’t buy District   
   Attorney Jackie Lacey statements about a lack of admissible   
   evidence, calling her explanation for passing the case to   
   federal prosecutors “disingenuous.”   
      
   “No one is pickier about what cases they file than the federal   
   government,” Rodriguez said. “It’s a known thing in criminal law   
   that the federal government only files perfect cases. ... They   
   want two helpings of all the evidence in the world.”   
      
   Lacey has defended her decision not to bring a case sooner or   
   file homicide charges. She said there was insufficient evidence   
   to charge Buck in the deaths, saying it made more sense to   
   proceed with a federal prosecution that would bring a minimum 20-   
   year sentence if he’s convicted.   
      
   Lacey denied that Buck, who had given her a $100 donation that   
   she later returned, received any favoritism. She said   
   investigators didn’t have the necessary witnesses to make an   
   arrest until the latest victim provided the account that gave   
   them their big break.   
      
   “We did not have other victims that were willing to talk to the   
   prosecutors to tell us what happened, to tell us they were   
   injected by Mr. Buck,” Lacey said.   
      
   Buck wasn’t stopped until authorities said a third black man   
   nearly died.   
      
   “I said it the last time we were down here that there’s going to   
   be a third victim,” said LaTisha Nixon, whose 26-year-old son,   
   Gemmel Moore, was the first to die. “We said there’s gonna be a   
   second victim. We kept saying it because we all knew ... Ed Buck   
   didn’t stop doing what he was doing.”   
      
   Nixon and her supporters welcomed the arrest but criticized the   
   time it took to put Buck behind bars and renewed their questions   
   about whether a wealthy, white Democratic donor benefited   
   because the victims were mostly gay black men and drug users,   
   some of whom were sex workers and homeless.   
      
   “If white gay men had been dying in a black man’s house or   
   anybody’s house, rather, this case would have been taken a lot   
   more seriously,” said Jasmyne Cannick, a communications   
   strategist who spearheaded the effort to get justice for Moore.   
   “Ed Buck knew who he was preying on, and he knew that people   
   would not care. Or he thought that people would not care.”   
      
   Buck, 65, was arrested Sept. 17 after the third man was   
   hospitalized for an overdose.   
      
   The Los Angeles County district attorney charged Buck with   
   running a drug house. Two days later, U.S. prosecutors charged   
   him with distributing methamphetamine resulting in Moore’s death.   
      
   Buck is being held without bail and has yet to enter a plea in   
   either case. His attorneys declined to comment, but one defense   
   lawyer, Seymour Amster, previously said Buck denied any role in   
   the deaths of Moore or Timothy Dean, 55, who overdosed Jan. 7.   
      
   Moore was found naked on a mattress on Buck’s living room floor   
   on July 27, 2017. Two dozen syringes and five glass pipes were   
   found, along with meth stored in a toolbox with sex toys.   
      
   Buck has donated tens of thousands of dollars to California   
   candidates, including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, and is well   
   known in LGBTQ political circles.  According to federal records,   
   Buck contributed more than $500,000 to Democratic groups,   
   including $1,500 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign and   
   $2,950 to the Hillary Clinton campaign.   
      
   When Moore was carried out of Buck’s apartment two years ago,   
   members of the gay political club he lavished with thousands of   
   dollars in political donations swiftly ousted him.   
      
   Buck attempted a comeback in early January, less than six months   
   after prosecutors declined to bring charges in the overdose   
   death. He tried to crash the Stonewall Democratic Club’s holiday   
   party at a Los Angeles-area wine bar, telling members he had   
   been exonerated, club president Lester Aponte said.   
      
      
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