Below is my summarization of the proceedings on the second day of Democratic donor Ed Buck’s federal criminal trial.
In USA v. Edward Buck, Buck is charged in a nine-count first superseding indictment with distribution of methamphetamine resulting in death, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C) (Counts 1 and 2); distribution of methamphetamine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C) (Counts 2 through 6); maintaining a drug premises, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 856(a)(1) (Count 7); and enticement to travel for purposes of prostitution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a) (Counts 8 and 9).
Buck has pleaded not guilty to all charges and is represented by Christopher Darden and Ludlow Creary II. I know, I know.
TRIGGER WARNING: Reading further may be disturbing, even traumatizing, to some people who are sensitive to drug use, racial slurs, or sadomasochism.
July 15, 2021
The court came to order at 9:28 a.m.
May I inquire Your Honor?
You may.
Joshua Tedla, Ed Buck’s Next Door Neighbor
Ed Buck’s next-door neighbor Joshua Tedla was the first witness to testify on the second day of testimony in the Ed Buck trial.
Joshua testified that he’d lived at 1234 N. Laurel Avenue since 2016 and that his apartment shared a wall with Ed Buck’s former apartment. The wall that was shared was in the living room of both apartments.
Mr. Tedla testified that given the location of his apartment, with the shade up, he could see anyone coming up or going down that stairs.
He said the Ed Buck has company round the clock but primarily between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.
Joshua described the men he saw as being young African American men and “transient street types.”
He testified that the men would leave Ed Buck’s apartment in what he described as a drunken stupor and that they looked like they were under the influence.
Joshua said that the volume of visitors subsided after each of the overdose deaths in 2017 and 2019, but quickly rose again as time passed.
Between the deaths, he saw a man who appeared to be under the influence circling the perimeter of the apartment complex screaming at Buck’s apartment and demanding $30.
Joshua also said that he saw a person with a bike and a backpack just casually sitting on the stairs and that he was pretty sure he wasn’t a resident. He said the man seemed to be in a drunken stupor or under the influence of something.
One of the most interesting things that Joshua shared was that after the death of Gemmel Moore in 2017, Ed Buck began doing a lot of construction on his apartment. He changed his windows to windows that were more soundproof. Joshua also surmised that Ed Buck soundproofed the wall they shared in common.
Joshua, who is Black, said that the day the Task Force came to make the arrest of Ed Buck, was a traumatizing experience.
On Joshua’s cross-examination, which was done by Christopher Darden, he was asked if the young Black men he saw were ill or suffered from some psychiatric condition and that’s why they looked like they were in a stupor.
Darden also asked Joshua, who is Black, what made him think the men he saw going into Ed Buck’s apartment were African American.
Joshua was also asked by Darden whether or not the people he saw in stupor could not have been under the influence, but just had AIDS.
Finally, Joshua testified that he heard a man who seemed to be under the influence on the phone talking to his mother. When he tried to go back into Buck’s apartment he wouldn’t let him in. This person, he said, just kept walking around the perimeter of the building until the manager asked him to leave.
Nusret Arnautovic, Ed Buck’s Apartment Building Manager
Next up was Ed Buck’s apartment building manager Nusret Arnautovic.
With a charming Eastern European accent, Mr. Arnautovic made observers chuckle after he was asked to identify Ed Buck in the courtroom and he curtly replied, “Yes. He is there.”
Mr. Arnautovic testified that he’d been the building manager since 2000 and that his apartment was directly across from Ed Buck’s.
He said he took screenshots of the surveillance footage showing Gemmel Moore entering the apartment complex with Buck on July 27, 2017. He testified that Buck had many male visitors, ranging from 25 to 40 years old at all hours of the day, and he continued to have such visitors after each of the overdose deaths.
Mr. Arnautovic said that he had to tell Buck to tell his guests to be quiet and that he’d received complaints from neighbors about Buck.
Senior Criminalist Courtney Castallino
Courtney Castallino testified that she performed the toxicology screens for Timothy Dean. For Timothy Dean, the results showed a blood alcohol content of between 0.112 and 0.146%; 0.003 ug/mL amphetamine and 1.6 ug/mL methamphetamine in the femoral blood.
Detective Robert Martindale, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Detective Robert Martindale testified that he executed a search warrant for Ed Buck’s apartment on September 17, 2019 and collected evidence of Buck’s drug use and distribution, including klonopin pills, plastic tubing and straws, masks, sex toys, and a flashlight with a hidden compartment that many of his victims told me and law enforcement authorities was a drug stash location.
Jurors were shown pictures of Ed Buck’s apartment on the day of the execution of the search warrant.
Jurors saw photos of:
- Multiple bins with mens underwear
- A mattress on the floor in front of the couch
- A red tool chest
- Lots of mirror arranged in the living
- Sex toys
- Tubing with meth residue
- Glass pipes for smoking meth
- Butane lighters
- Hypodermic needles
- Penis pumps
- Modified bottles that could be used for smoking meth
Jurors were shown photos of dog collars used for training dogs that emit an electrostatic shock.
Det. Martindale was asked if he found a dog while searching Ed Buck’s apartment.
He did not.
There were photos of a bottle labeled, “Fog Juice” with the words “Imglycol” on it.
Ethylene glycol is a colorless, odorless, sweet-tasting chemical. It is poisonous if swallowed. Ethylene glycol poisoning is poisoning caused by drinking ethylene glycol. Early symptoms include intoxication, vomiting and abdominal pain.
Later symptoms may include a decreased level of consciousness, headache, and seizures. Long-term outcomes may include kidney failure and brain damage. Toxicity and death may occur after drinking even a small amount.
On cross-examination, Darden tried to have the jurors believe that the battle of “Fog Juice” was for a fog machine.
Problem was, there was no fog machine in Ed Buck’s apartment.
The bottle labeled “Fog Juice” is consistent with the accounts of Buck’s various victims who have said that he slipped them something to drink that rendered them unconscious.
Buck had a Black & Decker jigsaw in the closet, which is consistent with his neighbor’s account of him doing work on his apartment. It also confirms the account of one of the victims I interviewed before who will testify about Buck using the jigsaw on him.
Jurors saw photos of an aerosol can with a false bottom. They saw a photo of an American flag that was identical to the one young men gave me photos of showing them in Ed Buck’s apartment.
They saw that Buck had a PR24 side-handle baton, a baton with a short side handle at a right angle to the shaft, about six inches from one end.
Of particular note and audible gasps were photos from a box of masks found in Ed Buck’s apartment.
Several of the masks were black faces that were skeletons with big bulging eyes.
Buck had a modified military-style gas mask.
There was a mask with a rainbow afro attached to a black face skeleton.
In correlation to the masks, on cross-examination, Christopher Darden asked Det. Martindale whether or not he was aware of the West Hollywood Halloween Parade.
Ed Buck had a lot of needles. There were boxes of needles, used and unused in his car on the day of his arrest.
He also had a lot of medicine for erectile dysfunction commonly referred to as ED.
Erectile dysfunction (impotence) is the inability to get and keep an erection firm enough for sex.
Darden continued to try and plant seeds of doubt in the jury’s minds by having Det. Martindale admit that he didn’t know who had used the glass meth pipes, when they were last used and who brought them into the apartment.
And if all that wasn’t enough, Darden went the extra mile and ask Detective Martindale to tell the jury how many Black males he found in Ed Buck’s apartment when he executed the search warrant.
Cole Alnes, Paramedic
Paramedic Cole Alnes testified that he was the “patient care” paramedic who responded to the scene of the Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean overdoses. During the Gemmel Moore incident, he saw a glass pipe on the kitchen table, and during the Timothy Dean incident, he saw towels covered in blood and vomit, indicating there had been an effort to clean up the scene before paramedics arrived.
He said in his career, he had never been to a scene where there was an overdose death and someone had already tried to clean up the bodily fluids. He thought that was strange.
On cross Darden’s Oopma Loompa, attorney Ludlow Creary, tried to have jurors believe that Mr. Alnes didn’t have enough training or experience to testify to what he saw.
For his part Alnes told Ludlow when it comes to signs and symptoms, flatlines are the easiest to identify. It’s literally a flat line showing no electrical activity in the body–duh.
Asystole is the most serious form of cardiac arrest and is usually irreversible. Also referred to as cardiac flatline, asystole is the state of total cessation of electrical activity from the heart, which means no tissue contraction from the heart muscle and therefore no blood flow to the rest of the body.
Deputy Grehtel Barraza, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Deputy Grehtel Barraza testified that she responded to a 911 call at Buck’s apartment during Gemmel Moore’s overdose and saw drug evidence in plain view in partially open tool chest drawers, as well as a glass pipe on the kitchen table.
On July 27, 2017, Deputy Barraza said that she responded to a 911 call for a medical emergency for a person not breathing.
Ed Buck made the call at 6:51 p.m.
The entire 911 call was played for the jury. Ed Buck was on the phone speaking to the operator and someone was in his house helping with Gemmel.
Barraza said that Gemmel was unconscious on a mattress on the floor in front of the couch and that he was pronounced dead at 7:22 p.m.
Barraza said the red tool chest was slightly open and she saw sex toys, a small bag of meth, and glass pipes with meth residue.
She testified that at 8:47 p.m. the same day, while Gemmel Moore’s body was still laying in Ed Buck’s apartment, another young Black man came into the building and told deputies that he was there to visit a friend.
Barraza told him to return another day because there was an active death investigation.
When questioned about how he knew Moore, Buck told deputies Gemmel was his friend who had just flown in from Texas.
The jury saw lots of bags of meth today and glass pipes for smoking meth.
On the cross-examination of Deputy Barraza Ludlow Creary asked her if Gemmel Moore’s told her that he had been diagnosed with AIDS just two months prior.
That set off a contentious back and forth between the attorneys that was to be argued later after the jury was gone.
Barraza didn’t answer the question, yet. We’ll see what happens later on because the defense asked to call her back in as a witness for the defense.
What that had to do with anything Deputy Barraza testified about, I still don’t know. But it’s clear that part of the defense’s strategy is to weaponize Gemmel Moore HIV status.
Coroner Investigator Joseph Cronin
Coroner Investigator Joseph Cronin testified that he collected Gemmel Moore’s personal effects and found no drug paraphernalia. He found Moore’s boarding pass showing he had flown to Los Angeles that day; photographed the scene; took custody of Gemmel Moore’s body; and examined the contents of Gemmel Moore’s phone before releasing it to a friend of Moore’s, per a written consent from Ms. LaTisha Nixon.
Detective Aaron King, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Detective Aaron King testified that he completed the Cellebrite extraction for Gemmel Moore’s phone.
Cellebrite is an Israeli digital forensics company that provides tools for collection, analysis, and management of digital data. The company is a subsidiary of the Japanese electronics company Sun Corporation.
Detective John Carlin, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Detective John Carlin testified that he recovered Gemmel Moore’s cell phones from Gemmel Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, and booked them into evidence. He went through certain text messages on Gemmel Moore’s cellphone that Ed Buck and Gemmel Moore exchanged just prior to Gemmel’s flight to Los Angeles on July 27, 2017.
A lot was made of the text messages between Buck and Gemmel that eventually concluded with Gemmel’s flight and arrival at Ed Buck’s apartment.
GM: “Hey Mr. Buck” sent with two photos of a man in underwear grabbing a big bulge in his penis area.
EB: Who is this?
GM: Your master slave.
EB: or slave master
Gemmel then texted a photo of an unknown Black woman with long nails injecting an unknown substance into the arm of an unknown male using a hypodermic needle.
Ed Buck responded with, “Be here now.”
Gemmel asked Ed Buck to send for him and that he’d “behave.”
One interaction via text that was shown to the jury had Ed Buck asking Gemmel what SMH meant.
Smh.
The jury saw lots of photos of Gemmel arriving at Ed Buck’s and going up to his apartment.
But the prosecution didn’t stop there.
They then had Det. Carlin go through numerous other photos in the weeks after Gemmel Moore’s death that showed what Ed Buck was up to.
Shall we?
Gemmel Moore died in Ed Buck’s apartment on July 27, 2017.
On August 9, 2017, a Black man was seen on video surveillance footage entering Ed Buck’s apartment.
On August 11, 2017, at 8:01 a.m. a different Black male entered Ed Buck’s apartment as shown on video surveillance footage photos.
The same day another Black male went into Ed Buck’s apartment.
On August 12, 2017, at 10:19 p.m. a different Black male entered Ed Buck’s apartment as shown on video surveillance footage photos.
On August 13, 2017, at 6:10 p.m. a different Black male entered Ed Buck’s apartment as shown on video surveillance footage photos.
On August 16, 2017, at 6:11 p.m. a different Black male entered Ed Buck’s apartment as shown on video surveillance footage photos.
Ed Buck is also shown on this day with a different Black male going downstairs to meet someone at the apartment building door and then going back upstairs.
I just want to say one more time that Gemmel Moore died in Ed Buck’s apartment on July 27, 2017. July 27.
Sergeant Paul Cardella, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
We ended day two with Sergeant Paul Cardella on the stand.
Sergeant Paul Cardella will be testifying that during the investigation into Ed Buck, he and members of the investigative team seized approximately eight of Buck’s digital devices and Buck’s iCloud, which Cardella searched and discovered messages, photographs, and videos evidencing Buck’s party and play sessions, including sessions with Gemmel Moore. He will give an overview of the investigation and introduce that digital device evidence. He will also go through text messages found on Buck’s devices that evidence Buck’s pattern of soliciting others for party and play.
Cardella is still on the stand. I’ll summarize his testimony once it’s concluded.
Wrap Up
AIDS
It’s clear that Christopher Darden and Ludlow Creary’s defense of Ed Buck involves weaponizing his victim’s HIV status. Darden and Ludlow are fixated on AIDS and making sure the jury has a negative connotation when they hear it.
The only relevance HIV has in this trial is the fact that Ed Buck is HIV positive and according to his victims, specifically asked them of their status and knew that they were positive when he did what he did to them. But the defense doesn’t want to talk about that.
Black Lives Matter
Christopher Darden loves to bring up Black Lives Matter. Every chance Darden gets to paint the people who came over to Ed Buck’s apartment building to protest the deaths of Gemmel Moore and Timothy Dean as Black Lives Matter, he does.
He may know the law, but clearly, he doesn’t know anything about Black Lives Matter.
Black Lives Matter was founded on abolition. They do not believe in advocating for anyone to go to jail or prison–in fact, they don’t want jails or prisons.
Everyone standing outside of Ed Buck’s apartment protesting was calling for him to be arrested and to go to jail.
The end.
Court will resume at 9 a.m. on Thursday with Sergeant Cardella’s testimony.
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Jasmyne Cannick is an award-winning journalist, political strategist, and popular television and radio commentator on race, politics, and social issues.
She’s been covering and chasing Ed Buck since August 2017.
You can read her previous coverage of Ed Buck, including the trial here.
Cannick founded Justice for Gemmel and All of Ed Buck’s Victims to extend her advocacy for the survivors and victims of Ed Buck beyond her journalism, leveraging both her political acumen and savviness with her community relationships.
Follow her on Twitter @Jasmyne for daily trial updates.
