THE DAILY BEAST:
Powerful Democratic donor Ed Buck solicited Timothy Dean for months prior to Dean’s suspicious death in Buck’s home, according to close friends, speaking out for the first time. Dean was found dead on Jan. 7, the second black gay man to die at Buck’s West Hollywood Home in less than two years.
Charges have not been filed against Buck in either death. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to press charges in the 2017 death of 26-year-old Gemmel Moore from a methamphetamine overdose at Buck’s apartment. They reopened an investigation into Moore’s death since Dean died. In November, Dean asked DeMarco Majors, his friends of 20 years, to make him a promise. Sitting at Gym Sportsbar in West Hollywood, Dean looked Majors right in the eye. “Ed Buck hits me up all the time, and I don’t answer none of his text messages,” he said, according to Majors. “Don’t you take your ass over there.”
For years, Buck had been plagued by accusations that he drugged young black men in his home on Laurel Avenue and eluded arrest by filling the coffers of California’s most powerful politicians. That July, the district attorney’s office announced it wouldn’t press charges against Buck in the death of Moore.
Charges have not been filed against Buck in either death. The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office declined to press charges in the 2017 death of 26-year-old Gemmel Moore from a methamphetamine overdose at Buck’s apartment. They reopened an investigation into Moore’s death since Dean died. In November, Dean asked DeMarco Majors, his friends of 20 years, to make him a promise. Sitting at Gym Sportsbar in West Hollywood, Dean looked Majors right in the eye. “Ed Buck hits me up all the time, and I don’t answer none of his text messages,” he said, according to Majors. “Don’t you take your ass over there.”
For years, Buck had been plagued by accusations that he drugged young black men in his home on Laurel Avenue and eluded arrest by filling the coffers of California’s most powerful politicians. That July, the district attorney’s office announced it wouldn’t press charges against Buck in the death of Moore.
Majors didn’t know Buck, he told Dean. Still, Dean insisted that Majors steer clear of Buck. Majors said Dean pulled out his phone and opened his texts. He scrolled upward with a flick of his thumb. Buck had been soliciting Dean for months, Dean told Majors. “Don’t you go over there,” he repeated. “I’m not going over there either. Shit, I’m not trying to end up dead.” It was Majors’ last conversation with Dean.
On January 7, another death was reported at Buck’s. Majors texted Dean about it.
“I was going to text him a picture of a body they found,” he said. But a friend texted Majors, “911.” “The picture that I’m looking at is my friend’s body,” he realized.
Majors can’t understand why Dean walked 13 minutes to Buck’s house just past midnight that night. Buck’s attorney, Seymour Amster, claimed the two men were friends of 25 years and that Dean arrived at Buck’s high on drugs and Buck was trying to help Dean get clean. “We stand by our position that Mr. Dean reached out to Mr. Buck on the night of his death and not vice versa,” Amster said in a statement to The Daily Beast. Amster denied assertions that Dean warned friends away from Buck.
Majors can’t understand why Dean walked 13 minutes to Buck’s house just past midnight that night. Buck’s attorney, Seymour Amster, claimed the two men were friends of 25 years and that Dean arrived at Buck’s high on drugs and Buck was trying to help Dean get clean. “We stand by our position that Mr. Dean reached out to Mr. Buck on the night of his death and not vice versa,” Amster said in a statement to The Daily Beast. Amster denied assertions that Dean warned friends away from Buck.
