Democratic figure Ed Buck accused of running drug house in West Hollywood apartment after recent meth overdose

Democratic figure Ed Buck accused of running drug house in West Hollywood apartment after recent meth overdose

by City News Service

Ed Buck, the prominent Democratic Party donor whose West Hollywood apartment was the scene of two fatal drug overdoses, was charged Tuesday by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office with running a drug den in his residence.

Buck is accused of injecting a 37-year-old man with methamphetamine Wednesday at the defendant’s apartment in the 1200 block of Laurel Avenue in West Hollywood, authorities said. The man suffered an overdose but survived, authorities said.

Buck, 65, was charged with one felony count each of battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.

Authorities arrested Buck on Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said.

Pressure toward prosecutors to charge Buck had been mounting in recent years in the wake of two overdose deaths at Buck’s Laurel Avenue home.

Timothy Dean, 55, of West Hollywood, was found dead Jan. 7 at the apartment. Coroner officials eventually ruled the death was an accidental methamphetamine overdose.

In July 2017, the body of 26-year-old Gemmel Moore was found at the same apartment. The coroner’s office also ruled Moore’s death an accidental methamphetamine overdose, to the dismay of his family, who wanted prosecutors to charge Buck with a crime.

Buck is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

Southern California News Group staff writer Jonah Valdez contributed to this story.

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