The deep-pocketed Democratic donor charged with running a Los Angeles drug house where three people overdosed — two fatally — once helped bankroll such party heavyweights as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Ed Buck — arrested Tuesday for allegedly using his West Hollywood apartment as a seamy drug-and-sex den — has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars dating back to at least the 1990s, according to public records and an investigation by KCAL-TV.
“The 65-year-old former model, who made his fortune through a since-sold Arizona courier business, steered the bulk of his largesse into his animal welfare-centric political action committee.”
Buck steered more than 0,000 into his Animal PAC over the past decade, according to KCAL.”
But Buck — blasted in court papers as a “violent, dangerous sexual predator” — also funneled nearly ,000 to Clinton and more than ,500 to Obama over the years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan money-tracking group.
Other boldface Democratic names on the receiving end of Buck’s bucks include LA Mayor Eric Garcetti, and California Reps. Ted Lieu and Adam Schiff, who serves as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
Records show that Buck’s donations abruptly stopped in 2017 — the year that Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old homeless male prostitute, suffered a fatal crystal meth overdose in Buck’s home.
Buck skirted any charges — as he did again in January 2019 when a second man, Timothy Dean, 55, died in the home of a meth overdose.
A wrongful-death suit filed over the summer by Moore’s relatives accused Buck, also a prominent LGBTQ activist, of hosting and recording “meth-fueled sexual encounters,” often with “black men in exchange for temporary housing and/or monetary compensation.”
An unidentified third man, 37, last week suffered a nonfatal overdose at Buck’s home, proving to be the final straw for authorities.
Buck was arrested Tuesday on charges of battery, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house, according to LA officials.
“From his home, in a position of power, Buck manipulates his victims into participating in his sexual fetishes,” prosecutors charge in court papers. “These fetishes include supplying and personally administering dangerously large doses of narcotics to his victims.
“Not deterred by the senseless deaths of Moore and Dean, the defendant nearly killed a third victim last week.”
Buck’s arraignment — at which prosecutors were expected to request million bail — was scheduled for Wednesday, but reportedly postponed without explanation, according to local reports.
Buck’s lawyer declined to comment.
With Post wires
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