A pipe for crack cocaine use, a needle for heroin use, and a pipe for methamphetamine use (REUTERS/David Ryder)

Democratic mega-donor Ed Buck was arrested on Tuesday and charged with with battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house.

The arrest came after an incident on September 11 incident in which Buck, 65, injected a 37 year old man with methamphetamine at his home in West Hollywood, causing the unnamed man to overdose, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office.


Buck has donated roughly $116,000 to Democratic causes and candidates, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. He rose to prominence as a Republican during the 1980s by leading the committee to recall then Arizona Governor Evan Mecham, who was impeached over accusations of fraud and perjury.

This is the third instance of a methamphetamine overdose at Buck’s residence since 2017. While the current victim survived, the two previous victims died as a result.

LaTisha Nixon, the mother of victim Gemmel Moore who was found dead at Buck’s apartment in 2017, had filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Buck which accused the latter of injecting a fatal dose of methamphetamine into Moore.


Nixon, who along with Moore is African-American, also accused Buck of having a “well-documented history of isolating Black men for predatory sexual encounters.”


Los Angeles police didn’t charge Buck in relation to Moore’s death because, according to court documents, they couldn’t prove “beyond a reasonable doubt that suspect Buck furnished drugs to Gemmel Moore or that suspect Buck possessed drugs,”

In January 2019 the second victim, Timothy Dean, died of an overdose in Buck’s apartment. Dean was also African-American, a fashion consultant who played in gay basketball competitions.

After Dean’s death, California Representative Ted Lieu announced he would donate $18,000 in contributions from Buck to civil rights organizations, while the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee donated Buck’s contributions to a Latino group called the NALEO Education Fund.

The current charges against Buck concern only the September 11 incident.

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