2nd death in Democratic megadonor Ed Buck's LA apartment ruled meth overdose, report says
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The second man who died in the span of 18 months at the West Hollywood apartment of Ed Buck, a 64-year-old who has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic Party candidates and is well known in LGBTQ political circles, died from a methamphetamine overdose, according to a report.
“Toxicology results are back and the cause of death is an overdose,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Investigator Quilmes Rodriguez told The Daily Beast on the death of 55-year-old Timothy Dean of West Hollywood, Calif. Rodriguez later said the drug was meth. Dean was pronounced dead at the apartment in January after police responded to a report of a person not breathing.
Buck’s attorney, Seymour Amster, told Fox News on Monday night: “This is a tragedy. ... Mr. Buck had nothing to do with his death.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The bodies of Gemmel Moore, left, and Timothy Dean, right, were found at the apartment of Ed Buck, center, 18 months apart. (Facebook/AP, File)
Amster said his client didn't know where Dean “got the meth, and he came over to the apartment intoxicated.”
Amster blamed the L.A. drug problem on the West Hollywood City Council, which he said would rather focus on headlines than fix the issues of its community: “The meth problem is the issue in West Hollywood. … Drugs are out of control in West Hollywood.”
However, close friends of Dean in January said they knew him as a sober, spiritual soul who didn’t abuse drugs and wanted to stay “as far away as possible” from the California political operative.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Fox News reported last month that Dean had warned his friends to steer clear of the well-connected donor and referred to him as a “f---ing devil” and “a horrible, horrible man.”
Activists and family members have been calling for Buck’s arrest, saying if Dean and the other man who died, 26-year-old Gemmel Moore, had been white there would be more attention on the case.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Moore died of a methamphetamine overdose in July 2017. He was found naked on a mattress in Buck’s living room, which was littered with drug paraphernalia.
Prosecutors didn’t file criminal charges, citing insufficient evidence.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.