“Joe Doe,” the African-America man whose escape from Ed Buck’s apartment after a drug overdose led to Buck’s arrest, has spoken out about his experience with Buck in an interview on NBC4.
In the interview, Doe says that he has entered a drug rehab facility and hopes to get his life back to where it was before he met Buck.
“I’m glad that for the first time in a while that I’ve seen that justice is being served properly,” Doe said.
Doe said he is entering a drug recovery program so that he can be ready for Buck’s trial and “so I can be able to stare him in the face or stare a prosecutor in the face and be ready for whatever they try to throw at me, and I can stay strong knowing that I’m doing everything that’s right.”
Doe, 37, also repeated his earlier statement that Buck’s lawyer, Seymour Amster, had warned him that he might be arrested, which led to Buck leaving his apartment at 1234 N. Laurel Ave. with Doe and camping out at various motels before deciding that an arrest wasn’t likely and returning home.
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrested Ed Buck on Sept. 17 on charges of operating a drug house and giving methamphetamine to Doe. According to court filings, Doe, whose real name hasn’t been released, visited Buck on Sept. 4 and was injected by Buck with methamphetamine, a highly addictive and dangerous drug. Doe, fearing he was suffering an overdose, left the apartment. He returned on Sept. 11 and Buck injected him with two “dangerously large” doses of meth, prosecutors said. Doe left the apartment and called 911 and was taken to a hospital.
Buck, a 65-year old white gay man known for his contributions to city, county, state and federal Democratic Party candidates and as an animal rights activist, has been the focus of controversy over the drug deaths of two other African-American men in his apartment.
The first was Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old who was found dead of a methamphetamine overdose in Buck’s apartment on July 27, 2017. Moore was a sex worker who was visiting his mother near Houston when Buck bought him an airline ticket to fly back to Los Angeles and go to his apartment. He was found dead on the day he arrived.
Timothy Dean, 56, was found dead of a meth overdose in Buck’s apartment on Jan. 7. The death of Dean sparked a demand this year for the Sheriff’s Department to open a second investigation into the circumstances of Gemmel Moore’s death. The Coroner’s Office originally had ruled Moore’s death an accident due to a drug overdose.
Buck now faces federal charges of providing the methamphetamine that caused the overdose death of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean as well as charges of distributing meth to Doe and two other men. The two charges of providing drugs resulting in death each carry a possible sentence of life in prison without parole. The three counts of distributing methamphetamine each carry a possible sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
So glad he is finally being held accountable for the deaths he caused. He is a very sick man.