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Wealthy Dem Donor Ed Buck Gets 30 Years in Prison for Drugs-for-Sex Deaths

Prosecutors accused Buck of preying on vulnerable men, often young and Black, as a means of satisfying his sexual fetish.

Ed Buck, a prominent Democratic Party donor, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison on Thursday for personally supplying and injecting men with methamphetamine in order to be able to sexually assault them, leading to at least two overdose deaths. Buck, 67, was convicted last July of a number of felonies, including operating a drug den, distributing meth, and enticing men to cross state lines for prostitution. A one-time fixture of the West Hollywood political scene, Buck was described by federal prosecutors as a predator who sought out vulnerable men, often gay and Black, as a means of satisfying his sexual fetish. Prosecutors wanted a judge to send Buck to prison for the rest of his life. “If Buck were ever released, he would feed his compulsion to inject others until the day he died,” they said in a court filing. The victims of his “party and play sessions,” as a prosecutor called it, were Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old who overdosed at Buck’s apartment in mid-2017, and Timothy Dean, 55, who died at Buck’s home two years later.