Report: Ed Buck to Be Charged With Federal Drug Crimes

Political donor and activist Ed Buck could serve much longer than six years in prison now that federal officials plan to slap him with drug charges related to at least one gay Black man's death.

Buck was arrested Tuesday night, facing state-level charges accusing him of running a drug house, administering meth, and battery causing serious injury. The 65-year-old was finally arrested after a 37-year-old man nearly overdosed in his West Hollywood apartment this month and later called 911. Two Black gay men have already died in Buck's home from drug overdoses; 26-year-old Gemmel Moore in July 2017 and 55-year-old Timothy Dean in January 2019. Even after the deaths of Moore and Dean, Buck was still luring vulnerable Black men to his apartment, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney. Moore wrote in his diary that Buck got him hooked on meth and personally injected it into him for the older man's sexual gratification.

Buck initially faced five years and eight months in jail, but the U.S. attorney's office is planning to file more charges against him today, according to an anonymous law enforcement official who spoke to the Los Angeles Times. The federal charge is distributing methamphetamine resulting in death and are believed to be related to Moore. Activists like Jasmyne Cannick have long questioned how Moore, who was not known to have much money and was flown in to California from Texas by Buck, could have obtained the drugs that killed him.