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Ed Buck: Democratic Megadonor and 2016 Clinton Elector Convicted in Two Overdose Deaths

Ed Buck, a West Hollywood political donor who gave to Hillary Clinton and California Democrats and served as a 2016 Clinton presidential elector, was convicted in 2021 of supplying the methamphetamine that killed two Black men at his apartment, Gemmel Moore (2017) and Timothy Dean (2019).

Jul 27, 2017
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Whose side it served: Democrats

Light national coverage spared Democratic officials who had taken his money.

What the record shows

Moore died in Buck's apartment in July 2017 and Dean in January 2019; prosecutors at first declined to charge Buck after both deaths. Federal charges came only in September 2019, after a third man overdosed and escaped. A federal jury convicted Buck on all nine counts in July 2021, and in April 2022 he was sentenced to 30 years. California's official 2016 elector list names Edward Buck of West Hollywood among the Democratic electors pledged to Clinton and Kaine. Local and wire outlets (AP, KTLA, LA Weekly) covered the case, and Black activists in Los Angeles pushed for charges for two years. Critics argue national networks gave it a fraction of the attention a Republican donor would have drawn, and that the delay in charging a well-connected donor was itself the story.

The other side

The AP and major papers did report the arrest, conviction and sentence; the two-year charging delay was a decision by the Los Angeles DA's office, not by the press.

Sources

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