Clinton Donor Found Guilty On All Counts By Jury As Ed Buck Will Spend Rest Of Life Behind Bars
A jury has reached its verdict in the trial of big Dem political donor Ed Buck finding him guilty on all counts. The jury found Buck guilty on nine felony counts, including two counts of distribution of controlled substances resulting in death. The last two charges carry 20-year mandatory minimums.
“He would find desolate, vulnerable victims and push meth on them over and over until they went unconscious,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsay Bailey alleged in her closing argument. “That’s what he liked about it, the power gave him sexual gratification. Every time he stuck a needle in someone’s arm, he was playing God. And he never stopped — not even after two men died.”
Buck was a major Democratic political donor who gave to former President Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California, and current California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Ludlow Creary II, one of Buck’s attorneys argued during his summation:
“This is a subculture, a lifestyle that may be shocking to some of us. Everyone involved was there voluntarily.”
The jury didn’t buy it.
From Fox 11:
Buck, who has reportedly given more than $500,000 to mostly Democratic politicians and causes since 2000, declined to testify in his own defense.
Over the course of eight days, federal prosecutors put on more than 20 witnesses, including four men who told of smoking methamphetamine that Buck provided and then being pressured to allow the defendant to shoot them up with the drug.
One of the men testified that he passed out after being given several injections, and then managed to rouse himself, leave the apartment and go to a nearby gas station, where he called paramedics who saved his life.
Prosecutors say Buck exploited vulnerable, primarily Black men by paying them to come to his home, use drugs and engage in sex play to satisfy a fetish.
The defense called just one witness to the stand. Dr. Marvin Pietruszka, who runs a private autopsy service in the San Fernando Valley,testified Friday that he analyzed photos, slides and medical reports on the bodies of Moore and Dean, finding that both men had serious underlying medical conditions that caused their deaths. Methamphetamine, he told the jury, did not kill either of the men.
Moore, Pietruszka said, died of complications from AIDS and pulmonary edema, while Dean died 18 months later, also in Buck’s apartment, of alcohol poisoning and heart disease.
Prosecution witnesses, including a county medical examiner, testified that both men died from lethal overdoses of methamphetamine.
Finally SOMEONE IS GOING TO JAIL.
— Denise (@Likeshesays) July 28, 2021
Hillary Clinton, Ted Lieu, Pete Aguilar, Adam B. Schiff are going to be so so sad…no more campaign money from Ed. 😂
Ed Buck found guilty on all counts for giving meth to 2 men who died in his WeHo apartment
New: Ed Buck, a longtime fixture of West Hollywood politics, was convicted Tuesday of charges that he supplied the methamphetamine that killed two men during “party-and-play” encounters at his apartment.
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) July 27, 2021
https://t.co/I436HyjDaP