Jury awards $2M in civil trial of political donor Ed Buck – NBC Los Angeles

A jury awarded $2 million Wednesday to plaintiffs in the civil trial of a wrongful death lawsuit against high-profile political donor Ed Buck.

The brief trial started Monday and resulted in a verdict Wednesday. A news conference was scheduled for Wednesday night with the plaintiff’s attorneys.

Buck, 71, was convicted in 2021 of nine felony counts stemming from the overdose deaths of two men at his West Hollywood apartment. The imprisoned felon serving a 30-year sentence faced a civil lawsuit by the mother of one of the men.

The wrongful death lawsuit went to trial Monday after Buck failed to finalize and sign a 2024 settlement agreement with LaTisha Nixon, the mother of Gemmel Moore.

“I miss my son every single day,” Nixon said. “There isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t think about him. This verdict doesn’t bring him back, but it gives me some peace knowing someone was finally held accountable for what happened to Gemmel.”

Nixon, who contended that Buck engaged in unlawful and negligent conduct, wrongful death, sexual battery, assault, hate violence based on Moore’s race, human trafficking, and revenge porn, was seeking damages on behalf of her late son.

Moore and Timothy Dean died of methamphetamine overdoses 18 months apart — Moore in July 2017 and Dean in January 2019.

Buck denied the allegations, maintaining that 26-year-old Moore was a long-time drug user and friend, and that they used methamphetamine and other drugs together. Buck claims Moore willingly participated in the actions alleged by his mother.

Evidence in the criminal case showed Buck lured young Black men who were often experiencing homelessness, addiction, and/or poverty to his West Hollywood apartment for sexually charged so-called “party and play” sessions in which he would inject them with methamphetamine and drug them with sedatives, with and without their consent.

After less than a day of deliberations on July 27, 2021 — the four-year anniversary of Moore’s death — the federal jury in downtown Los Angeles found Buck guilty of all nine charged felony counts.

Buck is facing an additional civil trial in Santa Monica on behalf of Dane Brown’s estate. Brown, 43, survived several drug overdoses at Buck’s homeand testified at the criminal trial but was found dead in South Los Angeles in November 2024.