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Ed Buck, 67, was found guilty on nine criminal counts in a in a
U.S. District Court trial last July stemming from his role in
soliciting men for sex games in which prosecutors said he gave
out drugs or injected them into his partners.
Two of the men suffered fatal overdoses at Buck's apartment in
West Hollywood: Gemmel Moore, 26, on July 27, 2017 and
55-year-old Timothy Dean in January 2019.
Buck, a prominent local and national figure in Democratic
politics who contributed to the campaigns of President Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton, was sentenced by a federal judge on
Thursday to 360 months in prison, according to a U.S. Justice
Department release.
A restitution hearing in the case was scheduled for May 16, the
statement said.
Prosecutors said at trial that the wealthy political donor
targeted homeless, drug-dependent or otherwise vulnerable men,
most of them Black, for his "party and play" sessions. Buck did
not testify in his own defense at trial.
Jurors found him guilty of two counts of distribution of
methamphetamine resulting in death, four counts of distribution
of methamphetamine, one count of maintaining a drug-involved
premises, and two counts of enticement to travel in interstate
commerce for prostitution.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by
Christopher Cushing)
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