Ed Buck, a former Democrat donor and activist, was sentenced by a federal judge in Los Angeles on Thursday to 30 years in prison for giving deadly doses of methamphetamine to two men in his West Hollywood apartment, prosecutors said.
The verdict completes Mr Buck’s unusual transformation from a prominent activist to a predator. The two men, Gemel Moore and Timothy Dean, died 18 months later in what the Justice Department called “party and play” in Mr Buck’s apartment, in which he lured and drugged men in his home, where they said he hosted sex-fueled parties from 2011 to 2019.
Judge Christina A. Snyder of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California convicted Mr. Buck, 67, after he was found guilty in July 2021 of nine charges related to the distribution of methamphetamine that led to his death. prostitution and the maintenance of a drug-related facility, the U.S. Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Thursday.
The judge scheduled a hearing next month to determine how much restitution Mr. Buck would owe.
Mr Buck has faced between 20 years in prison in federal prison, the Justice Department said last year.
Tracy L. Wilkinson, the U.S. district attorney, said in a statement Thursday that he hoped the sentence would bring comfort to the victims’ families.
“This accused has attacked vulnerable victims – men addicted to drugs and often homeless – to fuel a mania that has led to death and unhappiness,” she said.
Mr. Moore died in July 2017, and Mr. Dean died in January 2019.
Mr. Buck’s lawyer, Mark J. Verksman said Thursday that he plans to appeal what he called an “excessive sentence.”
“The death was tragic. His accusation and conviction was tragic. The verdict is tragic, “he said.” None of this should have happened. “
Mr Buck’s victims were often black men he found online or through his previous victims, US prosecutors said. He injected them into his apartment with syringes filled with methamphetamine, sometimes while unconscious.
During the sentencing hearing, Mr. Buck told Judge Snyder that he was not “the methamphetamine-powered ax killer” he thought prosecutors had presented him, NBC Los Angeles reported.
“These are men I care about and love,” he said. “I did not cause their death.”
Mr Buck’s double life began to unravel in January 2019 after Mr Dean, his second victim, was found dead in the same way Mr Moore was found 18 months earlier. They were both gay black men.
The second death aroused suspicion of what was happening in Mr. Buck’s apartment. Crowds of protesters gathered in front of the building demanding justice. Mr Moore’s mother soon sued Mr Buck for wrongful death.
But he was not arrested or charged until September 2019, a week after a third man overdosed on Mr Buck’s apartment. The man survived.
Mr Buck was a longtime activist who donated at least $ 116,000 to Democratic candidates and groups during his lifetime. He became nationally recognized in the 1980s when he was a Republican for leading withdrawal attempts against a Republican governor in Arizona.
He retired when he was 32, he said, after making a fortune in the insurance business. He has been a model for several years in Europe.
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