XPost: la.general, alt.politics.media, alt.business
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It’s not like West Hollywood hasn’t had its scandals. As Bob
Bishop, a regular contributor to WEHOville, has reported, there
was the murder of Sal Mineo in 1976 in the alley behind his
apartment at 8569 Holloway Drive, the still unsolved stabbing
death on Lloyd Place in 1977 of young actress Christa Helm, who
had a number of high-profile lovers, including the Shah of Iran,
and the 1982 strangling of another young actress, Dominique
Dunn, daughter of crime writer Dominick Dunne, in the driveway
of her home at 8723 Rangely Ave. by her estranged boyfriend.

Jump ahead and there was the May 2016 murder at 8530 Holloway
Drive of Iana Kasian by her boyfriend, the wealthy young Blake
Leibel, which Dr. James Ribe of the L.A. County Coroner’s Office
said may have been the most gruesome murder in the history of
Los Angeles. And then there was the March 2014 murder at 939
Palm Ave. of Kurtland Ma, a 34-year-old physician, by his
boyfriend, Andre Davids, who “disemboweled” Ma and stuffed some
of his organs, including his penis, into his mouth. That was
followed weeks later by the shooting death at the same apartment
building of one innocent young man and the severe wounding of
another by a Sheriff’s deputy who remains on duty at the West
Hollywood Station and whose discipline, if any, L.A. County
Sheriff Alex Villanueva has refused for eight months to disclose
to WEHOville despite that being required by law.

Then there have been the allegations of sexual misbehavior by
City Councilmember John Duran, ranging from a claim of sexual
harassment by his former City Hall deputy Ian Owens in 2015,
which the city settled with a $500,000 payout, to more recent
claims by four young members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los
Angeles, whose board Duran once chaired. The City Council
censured Duran after he made public statements bragging that he
had a more active sex life than his fellow Council members and
after a number of LGBT organizations, including Stonewall
Democrats and Christopher Street West, condemned him for his
behavior.

But the arrest on Tuesday (and the federal indictment on
Thursday) of Ed Buck looks likely to have a bigger impact on the
City of West Hollywood. Like the Duran scandal, that arrest has
been in the news across the nation, with newspapers such as The
New York Times and the Washington Post reporting it as well as
all of the major television networks, but it also has elements
of alleged racism and political favoritism.

Before the death from a drug overdose of 26-year-old Gemmel
Moore in his apartment in 2017, Buck was best known for his
successful campaign to have controversial Arizona Gov. Evan
Meacham impeached in 1988, for his advocacy for animal rights,
for his financial support of Democratic Party candidates, for
his own failed run in 2007 for a seat on the West Hollywood City
Council, and for his successful campaign to get John D’Amico
elected to the Council in 2011 on a promise to push for a ban on
the sale of fur items in West Hollywood.

The charges filed against Buck, who is a white gay man, describe
crimes involving black gay men, most of them young, who Buck
allegedly paid to come to his apartment to engage in sex and use
drugs. (Allegations denied by his lawyer, Seymour Amster.) In
addition to Moore, “investigators have identified 10 additional
victims — nine of whom [Buck] administered drugs or strongly
encouraged them to ingest narcotics as part of agreements to be
compensated for sexual services,” U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna told
reporters Thursday. The federal complaint against Buck said
those men have said Buck paid them to use drugs and dress up in
white underwear for his sexual pleasure, something documented by
statements and shown in photographs published last year by
WEHOville.

Black men are a distinct minority in West Hollywood, with the
largest gathering of them in the past few years being at
protests outside Buck’s apartment building at 1234 N. Laurel
Ave. At several of those protests, black activists have claimed
that West Hollywood is racist because its leaders haven’t pushed
harder for Buck’s arrest and have taken campaign donations from
Buck. However, in January, shortly after the death by drug
overdose of Timothy Dean in Buck’s apartment, the second such
incident, the City of West Hollywood did issue a statement
saying it “has requested a full investigation by the Los Angeles
County Sheriff’s Department.”

The fact that Buck made donations to the election campaigns of
four current members of the West Hollywood City Council also is
having an impact on the city. Two of those City Council members,
John Duran and John Heilman, are running for re-election in
November 2020. Duran has represented Buck in a past legal issue
and has been criticizing for warning sex workers and drug users
that they might be arrested if they gave testimony against him
to detectives. Only Councilmember Lindsey Horvath, who has been
vocal in demanding that Buck be investigated, has not received
donations from Buck. Black activists have demanded that Duran,
Heilman, Councilmember Lauren Meister and Mayor John D’Amico,
along with other county and state politicians, give the money
that Buck donated to their campaigns to organizations such as
the “Justice 4 Gemmel + All of Ed Buck’s Victims” fund, which
organizer Jasmyne Cannick has said “will help with legal costs
as well as supporting the family of Gemmel Moore and all of Ed
Buck’s victims.”

Neither Duran nor Heilman has responded to the demands to
redirect the Buck donations to their campaigns. Meister has
responded by noting that she has made donations to other
socially conscious organizations. D’Amico has said he cannot
redirect those donations because his campaign already has spent
the money, however, he did donate $25 to the Justice4Gemmel
fund. In defending his refusal to redirect all of the donations
from Buck, D’Amico has said that he and his husband make regular
annual donations to charities. Meister and D’Amico did show some
support for the campaign to have Buck investigated by appearing
at one of the several activist rallies outside Ed Buck’s Laurel
Avenue apartment building, where they were criticized by several
of the speakers.

Stories about Buck have exaggerated to some degree the size of
his donations to candidates. His donation of $2,750 to Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign wouldn’t make him a “major
donor” to Clinton, as has been alleged. A petition demanding
that the Buck donations be redirected also has exaggerated the
size of his donations to West Hollywood City Council candidates,
who can accept no more than $500 per election from a particular
individual. For example, the petition states that Buck donated
$2,000 to Heilman’s 2017 re-election campaign when $500 was the
limit. Buck did donate $500 to Lauren Meister’s 2015 election
campaign and a total of $1,000 to D’Amico’s 2011 and 2015
election campaigns. Buck made a larger donation — $11,500 – to
Duran’s unsuccessful 2014 race for a seat on the L.A. County
Board of Supervisors.

The Buck scandal has been especially difficult for Mayor D’Amico
because it was support from Buck and his animal rights group
that got D’Amico elected to City Council in 2011. D’Amico ran on
a promise to push for a ban on the sale of fur and to push back
against the political establishment, especially John Heilman,
who has been on the City Council since West Hollywood was
incorporated in 1984 (and whose re-election D’Amico subsequently
endorsed in 2017.) Buck’s support for D’Amico included a dig
into city records that Buck claimed showed misuse of city credit
cards by Fran Solomon, deputy to Heilman, and other city
employees – a claim that D’Amico and fellow challengers Scott
Schmidt, Steve Martin, Mito Aviles, and Lucas John Junkin made
in a press conference the day before the March 7, 2011, election
and that a later investigation largely refuted.

On Tuesday, D’Amico posted a statement about Buck’s arrest on
his Facebook page: “If proven, these charges appear to confirm
what many of us suspected for some time, that Mr. Buck was
recklessly harming members of the community, as recently as this
month, and finally the District Attorney is taking action to
stop this from happening again.”

Horvath praised the arrest of Buck on Facebook. On Thursday,
with the announcement that Buck now is facing federal charges
related to the death of Gemmel Moore, she offered a more
detailed statement:

“The families of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean – along with
members of the West Hollywood community – worked tirelessly to
see this day come. Because people kept memories of Gemmel and
Timothy from fading away as mere accidents, the investigation
into the circumstances of their tragic deaths continued. I
support the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in doing whatever
it takes to bring closure and peace to all of the friends and
families whose loved ones were victimized. There is still a long
way to go for justice to finally be served in their names,
however, we hope the evidence from this arrest will finally make
clear what has happened, and we hope will never happen again.”

To date, no other Council members have made public statements
about Buck’s arrest or the federal indictment.

The Buck scandal also is likely to continue to have an impact on
Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who initially
refused to prosecute Buck in Gemmel Moore’s death, saying there
wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict him. The L.A. County
Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau re-opened the investigation after the
death of Timothy Dean in January, however, it hasn’t yet issued
a statement on its findings. The arrest it made on Tuesday was
prompted by a 911 call on Sept. 11 from a man who had overdosed
a second time in Buck’s apartment.

“The surviving victim’s statements gave us the break we
needed,”Lacey said at a press conference on Thursday. “We have
done everything possible to put this depraved sexual predator
away.”

However, Gemmel Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, and friends and
supporters are unwilling to give Lacey a pass. Jasmyne Cannick
issued a statement yesterday saying: “The filing of these
federal criminal charges in no way absolves Los Angeles County
District Attorney Jackie Lacey of her poorly conducted
investigation and prosecution of Ed Buck.

“We fully expect Jackie Lacey to expand the State’s criminal
complaint against Ed Buck by adding two counts of 1st-degree
felony murder. Lacey charged Ed Buck with furnishing drugs and
operating a drug den. Both furnishing drugs and operating a drug
den are felony offenses in California. Both Moore and Dean died
inside of Buck’s drug den when Buck furnished drugs to them.
Both deaths were the reasonably foreseeable result of Ed Buck’s
felonious conduct. All of the elements of felony murder under
California law are met in this case, and Lacey has an obligation
to amend her felony complaint against Buck to include felony
murder counts for the deaths of Moore and Dean.

“Lacey also has an obligation to amend her felony complaint
beyond Buck’s criminal acts against Moore, Dean, and Joe Doe.
The affidavit filed by the Department of Justice lists at least
10 other victims against whom Buck committed a violent sex
crime. Lacey’s felony complaint must vindicate all of Ed Buck’s
victims accordingly.

“We also fully expect Jackie Lacey to retract the false
statements she made during the September 19, 2019 press
conference at the Hall of Justice.
Lacey falsely claimed that her team worked diligently and
carefully to find and speak with witnesses over the course of
the last 2 years. This is untrue. Our team of activists had to
personally escort witnesses to the LASD’s office and pressure
them into recording our witnesses’ statements. We later
discovered, in May of 2019, that Lacey was not even aware that
these reports existed.

“Lacey falsely claimed we presented witnesses whose statements
were comprised entirely of hearsay. This is also untrue. Each
and every one of the witnesses we presented to the County was
directly and disturbingly victimized by Ed Buck. Lacey falsely
claimed our witnesses lawyered up and refused to speak with her
team. This too is untrue. Lacey’s team went behind our backs to
surprise witnesses at their homes and speak with them in secret
after we specifically instructed Lacey’s team that we wanted to
be present as counsel during any interviews causing the
witnesses to not want to deal with the investigators.”

Scott Roberts, senior director of criminal justice campaigns,
for Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice
organization, also criticized Lacey. “This is the day our
community feared. It’s what we warned against. It’s what we
railed against. It has taken harm to yet another black man for
District Attorney Lacey to dare to bring charges against Ed
Buck. It is our community that has now paid the price of Lacey’s
initial refusal to hold a powerful person to account for his
previous predations on young, black men.”

https://www.wehoville.com/2019/09/20/in-west-hollywood-home-to- some-famous-scandals-the-ed-buck-one-will-have-a-special-impact/

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