Speaker 1: In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively
Speaker 1: about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is suicidal in the
Speaker 1: US Down nine eighty eight, check out this podcast notes
Speaker 1: page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources in
Speaker 1: your community.
Speaker 2: This is Shattering the System. I'm Sinarian Glinton. By now
Speaker 2: you're likely familiar with the name at Buck. Ed Buck
Speaker 2: was indicted on two counts of distribution of methan fetamine
Speaker 2: resulting in death. He was accused of four counts of
Speaker 2: distribution of methen fetamine, one count of maintaining a drug
Speaker 2: involved premises, and two counts of enticement to travel in
Speaker 2: inter state commerce for prostitution. The two counts of distribution
Speaker 2: resulting in death were for the deaths of Jammel Moore
Speaker 2: and Timothy Dean.
Speaker 3: We believed these victims, We believe that what they said
Speaker 3: happened to them actually happened to them, and we wanted
Speaker 3: to keep Buck from doing this to anybody else.
Speaker 2: Lindsey Bailey is an assistant US attorney. She was the
Speaker 2: lead attorney in the case against that Buck. She lays
Speaker 2: out each of the charges first, there were the distribution
Speaker 2: charges that didn't result in death. Those were for the
Speaker 2: four victims who testified and survived.
Speaker 3: We had four victims here who because they lived and survived,
Speaker 3: their cases were just charged as distribution cases. There's no
Speaker 3: mandatory minimum. The statutory maximum is I think in that
Speaker 3: case twenty years.
Speaker 2: And this is a distribute for like. Yes, then there
Speaker 2: were two counts of enticing someone to travel across state
Speaker 2: borders for prostitution. That was because of the evidence that
Speaker 2: Buck had offered to and paid for Jamel to travel
Speaker 2: from Texas to California for sex. And then there was
Speaker 2: one count of maintaining a drug involved premises. Well, that
Speaker 2: seems straightforward. Buck was accused of using his home as
Speaker 2: a drug house. Bailey says none of those charges had
Speaker 2: mandatory maximums.
Speaker 3: Though it always drives me crazy when they say, well,
Speaker 3: they're looking at a maximum sentence of this. Usually when
Speaker 3: you're charged with that crime, it's very rare that anyone
Speaker 3: is sentenced anywhere near the maximum. So for those cases,
Speaker 3: you're looking at, you know, a year, five years, maybe
Speaker 3: if you're lucky, ten years for that type of distribution.
Speaker 3: For the death resulting cases, now, this is.
Speaker 2: The important part. The real charges against ed Buck, the
Speaker 2: ones that the government thought would be a deterrent, where
Speaker 2: the distribution resulting in death that ed Buck gave Jamal
Speaker 2: and Timothy the drugs that killed them.
Speaker 3: I distributed drugs to you and you died, or I
Speaker 3: distributed them to someone and someone died, whether it's methamphetamine
Speaker 3: in Buck's case, or you know. More often we're seeing
Speaker 3: this with fentanyl cases. It's an automatic twenty year mandatory minimum,
Speaker 3: and then the guidelines range is much higher, so you're
Speaker 3: looking at a minimum of twenty years, but it could
Speaker 3: go up anywhere to life imprisonment. He is in class
Speaker 3: all in his own and I think the reason that
Speaker 3: our office brought charges against mister Buck is we saw
Speaker 3: an individual who was essentially praying on vulnerable communities with impunity.
Speaker 3: He seemed to have no remorse for what he was doing.
Speaker 3: He was putting people's lives in danger on a regular basis,
Speaker 3: and not just people, but specifically vulnerable communities. Really what
Speaker 3: he was doing was pretty horrific, and so there was
Speaker 3: a strong desire to bring charges specifically, I think against
Speaker 3: mister Buck because of the number of victims he had,
Speaker 3: because he was doing this with impunity because multiple people
Speaker 3: had died as a result of his actions, and so
Speaker 3: for mister Buck, I think that was the main reason
Speaker 3: that we were looking to bring charges against him as
Speaker 3: opposed to know your average drug dealer on the street.
Speaker 2: After nine days of hearing testimony that even a judge
Speaker 2: found disturbing, the.
Speaker 4: Trial recessed for the jury to figure out a verdict.
Speaker 2: Jonathan Unger is one of the producers of this podcast.
Speaker 2: Jonathan and I were there for the reading of the
Speaker 2: verdict in the case of the United States versus ed Buck.
Speaker 4: That happened at nine point thirty in the morning of
Speaker 4: They were back with their verdict by one fifty pm
Speaker 4: that same afternoon, and I think that shocked everyone.
Speaker 2: Because it.
Speaker 4: Hinted that it was a unanimous decision. But the fact
Speaker 4: that happened that quickly, that kind of also gave over
Speaker 4: one hope as we as we entered the viewing room
Speaker 4: before the verdict.
Speaker 2: This was the moment ed Buck was charged with nine
Speaker 2: federal counts. In the rooms set aside for visitors, the
Speaker 2: room quieted as people strained to hear the judge over
Speaker 2: the closed circuit television. I remember thinking how many queer
Speaker 2: people there were assembled in this very non gay setting.
Speaker 2: This was a first for me. We were all in
Speaker 2: our version of courtroom drag, trying to serve respectability, realness,
Speaker 2: and I remember seeing multiple people bolt make the sign
Speaker 2: of the Cross. When the moment came.
Speaker 5: Guilty guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty
Speaker 5: on all nine counts. Buck gave no indication that he
Speaker 5: even heard the verdict. I don't remember hearing teers or shouts.
Speaker 5: It was as if the entire courtroom exhaled guilty on
Speaker 5: the two counts. With mandatory minimums, ed Buck would have
Speaker 5: to serve jail time for his role in the deaths
Speaker 5: of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean. Jamel Moore's mother, Letitia Nixon,
Speaker 5: would get a guilty verdict exactly four years after Jammel's
Speaker 5: tragic death.
Speaker 6: A big weight has been lifted off of a need.
Speaker 6: I know that we were going to get justice.
Speaker 2: This is shattering the system. I'm scenario Glinton. We hear
Speaker 2: from the family of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean, and
Speaker 2: the government learns that ed Buck wasn't alone in exploiting
Speaker 2: the gay community.
Speaker 7: He exclusively targeted gay men who he met on the
Speaker 7: dating app Grinder, and when he met them, he used
Speaker 7: gay dating culture in a way that allowed him to
Speaker 7: really violently exploit these men.
Speaker 2: The aftermath and the lessons learned from ed Buck, that's
Speaker 2: after this quick break. This is shattering the system. I'm
Speaker 2: sinarian Glinton. Jurors found ed Buck guilty on all nine charges.
Speaker 2: Remember the important ones were the two with mandatory minimums.
Speaker 2: When the judge read the verdict, there was silence, and
Speaker 2: as the courthouse emptied, it seemed as if an emotional
Speaker 2: valve had opened. Tears flowed from the spectators, with family,
Speaker 2: victims and lawyers embracing as they walked out of the
Speaker 2: courthouse into the blazing California sun. The viewers of the
Speaker 2: trial were a genuinely diverse group of people that was
Speaker 2: in star contrast to the other lack of diversity in
Speaker 2: the LA press that gathered to cover the trial. The
Speaker 2: divide between the family and friends the victims, and the
Speaker 2: largely white straight press corps was clear as the families
Speaker 2: stepped up to the microphones on the steps of the
Speaker 2: Federal courthouse.
Speaker 8: My name is.
Speaker 6: Nixon, Joanelmore's mom. I'm so happy and pleased that we
Speaker 6: could put this part behind us. We want to send
Speaker 6: a message to all the other at Bucks, y'all better
Speaker 6: stop what y'all doing. We're gonna get y'all.
Speaker 2: If Jamel Moore's mother was happy with a guilty verdict,
Speaker 2: that would mean that the work to get justice was done,
Speaker 2: she would continue with the civil suit that would seek
Speaker 2: to get ed Buck to be financially responsible for the
Speaker 2: damage he'd done.
Speaker 6: I saw want to put a play out to all
Speaker 6: of the politicians, all the ed Bucks' friends, so retire
Speaker 6: that dirty money, return it back to us so that
Speaker 6: we can help these other victims, and we can go
Speaker 6: forward in our civil suit. All the ed Bucks friends,
Speaker 6: these dirty politicians. Y'all know who y'all are. It's all
Speaker 6: I have to say.
Speaker 9: There a lot of pressure to get law enforcement to
Speaker 9: pack to the cases. Yes, are you an open out
Speaker 9: doubtful change and help me?
Speaker 6: Almost definitely. This really increased my faith.
Speaker 2: Yes, the verdict in twenty twenty one is what many
Speaker 2: of the friends and family would call a victory in
Speaker 2: the West. One of the disappointments, though, would come with
Speaker 2: the sentencing in twenty twenty two. The judge didn't give
Speaker 2: Buck a life sentence. She stopped at what she called
Speaker 2: an effective life sentence. Buck was sentenced to three hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty months, that's thirty years in federal prison for
Speaker 2: providing fatal doses of methamphetamine to two men who died
Speaker 2: at his apartment after he injected them with the drug.
Speaker 2: Buck was sixty seven at the time of sentencing. If
Speaker 2: he gets out, he'll be ninety seven.
Speaker 6: You know what, It's fine, he's sixty seven, he'll be
Speaker 6: ninety seven. I'm happy with that. Yeah, this has been
Speaker 6: almost five years since twenty seventeen when we couldn't get
Speaker 6: Jackie Lacey to filing me charges and no one wanted
Speaker 6: to touch this. This has been a long time coming. So
Speaker 6: very happy and I'm just I'm ready to just put
Speaker 6: this behind me and go, you know, ahead with healing
Speaker 6: because I haven't been able to heal me, nor my
Speaker 6: other kids, my mother, rest of my family. I'm just
Speaker 6: I need to focus on healing. I came and did
Speaker 6: what I had to do.
Speaker 2: Letician Nixon was able to give an impact statement, and
Speaker 2: she said Jammel was the love of her life and
Speaker 2: how his death had upended her own life. The detail
Speaker 2: that stands out was she explained how she'd been there
Speaker 2: for patients as they were dying, and ed Buck had
Speaker 2: let her son die naked and alone without anyone to
Speaker 2: comfort him. Meanwhile, ed Buck would ask the court to
Speaker 2: consider his activism in West Hollywood, including his fight for
Speaker 2: animal rights. We're going to listen to the press conference
Speaker 2: after the sentence single, so let's start with Letitia Nixon.
Speaker 6: A big weight has been lifted off of me. I
Speaker 6: knew that we were going to get just this. I
Speaker 6: knew that he was going to get some time because
Speaker 6: he's guilty. He had, you know, they got his own
Speaker 6: factorah evidence that he kept hisself, so he basically convicted hisself.
Speaker 9: So I'm happy, but you're still crushing they keep it
Speaker 9: foll hear.
Speaker 6: I'm a little frustrated, but I'm happy with the results.
Speaker 9: I'm Joanne Campbell.
Speaker 10: I'm not completely satisfied with it. Thirty years. I was
Speaker 10: hoping for more time for this man that killed my brother.
Speaker 10: But I can live with the thirty years knowing that
Speaker 10: it's going to be a very long time before he
Speaker 10: gets out, So I can live with that. But I'm
Speaker 10: just so proud of the prosecutors that prosecuted this case
Speaker 10: and the great job that they did to bring this
Speaker 10: justice to this man. So no amount of time can
Speaker 10: bring my brother back. But I feel some kind of
Speaker 10: solace and some kind of renege for my family that
Speaker 10: he will be in prison for a very long time.
Speaker 9: What did you think about what it was said about
Speaker 9: an accident.
Speaker 10: That's not love when you kill someone. And I don't believe.
Speaker 10: He was a friend to my brother and he loved
Speaker 10: my brother, so that was just something he was saying,
Speaker 10: hopefully to get some sympathy from the judge. But I
Speaker 10: don't believe and buy any of it. If law enforcement
Speaker 10: had acted in the beginning when Jamel Moore was killed,
Speaker 10: it wouldn't have been a Timothy Jean's death because this
Speaker 10: man would have been put away. So I do believe
Speaker 10: that they should have acted a lot quickly and we
Speaker 10: would be here and thank you everything. Hi. I'm Joyce Jackson,
Speaker 10: Timothy Jan's sister. Today is a good day, So not
Speaker 10: the best day, but it is good and I can
Speaker 10: go home today feeling a whole lot better and try
Speaker 10: to get my life back together. And when I say that,
Speaker 10: I have not been able to visit my brother's grave site,
Speaker 10: so I can go home now and go to his
Speaker 10: grave site and have a conversation with him. There is
Speaker 10: victory in the West. I did want to see more
Speaker 10: time for him. However, I'm good with these thirty years.
Speaker 7: Where's brother Ferry.
Speaker 10: He's in Tampa, Florida at a beautiful grave site. So
Speaker 10: I'm glad that I'll be able to leave here and
Speaker 10: finally go to his grave site. I just wish that
Speaker 10: this date would have never occurred. However, we're here. We've
Speaker 10: got to deal with it, and I'm ready to start
Speaker 10: healing because I have not been able to heal, and
Speaker 10: that's been one of the most hardest things for me.
Speaker 11: Hi.
Speaker 12: Everyone, my name is Dane, last name Brown. I'm the
Speaker 12: final victim of bed bunts. My response to since seeing
Speaker 12: it's like they said one and a half times what
Speaker 12: he's old, and I don't feel that it's fair for
Speaker 12: all the victims because he only got a little bit
Speaker 12: of what he deserves. It's something better than nothing. But
Speaker 12: you know, I wish the courts would have done more.
Speaker 12: It should have been a lesson. It should have been swift,
Speaker 12: should have been hard, it should have been more, you know,
Speaker 12: regardless of his age. He's done a lot of wrong
Speaker 12: things to a lot of people. He's destroyed families, and
Speaker 12: he's destroyed lives, so he needed to be It needed
Speaker 12: to be a lesson to other people out there who
Speaker 12: are trying to do the same things, are not knowing
Speaker 12: that they're doing the same things. They needed to They
Speaker 12: needed to see that the government doesn't play around when
Speaker 12: it comes to lives. And we got some but not all.
Speaker 12: I'm grateful that he won't get out for a very
Speaker 12: long time, but I wish it was more done. And
Speaker 12: that's pretty much all I have to say. It should
Speaker 12: have be in life, should have been a live.
Speaker 7: Tell us about your experience.
Speaker 12: Going through this trial. I try my best not to
Speaker 12: think about it. I'm trying to take each day as
Speaker 12: it comes and knowing that you know, each date gets
Speaker 12: better and better. But coming back to the trial, it
Speaker 12: takes me back to a different time in my life,
Speaker 12: and I'm glad that I'm past that point.
Speaker 9: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Tracy Wilkinson. I'm the United States
Speaker 9: Attorney for the Central District of California.
Speaker 2: Tracy Bolcason would succeed Nick Hanna as US attorney briefly
Speaker 2: with me or.
Speaker 9: The ausas that prosecuted this case, ed Buck committed horrible,
Speaker 9: unimaginable crimes. The United States Attorney's Office took it very seriously,
Speaker 9: the jury took it seriously, and today the judge took
Speaker 9: it seriously and sends him to third years in prisoned.
Speaker 9: It was not the life term that we had advocated
Speaker 9: so persuasively for, but it is still a significant sentence
Speaker 9: that recognizes his serious, serious crimes. And I know that
Speaker 9: no sentence, frankly, even a life sentence, would not have
Speaker 9: been enough to bring back your family members to undo
Speaker 9: the harm that's been done to you. But I hope
Speaker 9: that you will now be able to begin the healing
Speaker 9: process because you know that this man is going to
Speaker 9: be in prison for a very long time. Hotey, you agree.
Speaker 13: I'm immensely grateful for the continuing support of the victims
Speaker 13: and families who have entrusted us with the memory and
Speaker 13: justice for their loved ones.
Speaker 9: It has been immeasurable in terms of.
Speaker 13: Not only building the case, but giving us the passion
Speaker 13: to keep pursuing it even when we sought when we
Speaker 13: faced adversity in this case. And I also just want
Speaker 13: to say that I think in my opinion, one of
Speaker 13: the things that was the most persuasive today were the
Speaker 13: statements of the victims who came in.
Speaker 9: And gravely spoke.
Speaker 13: Again.
Speaker 14: They some of them testified a trial, some of them
Speaker 14: weren't able to and were able to give make their
Speaker 14: voices heard today. But I think of all of the
Speaker 14: things that happened today, that was one of the most
Speaker 14: powerful and.
Speaker 3: One of the most persuasive things.
Speaker 14: And you know, I am grateful to the US Attorney's office,
Speaker 14: and particularly grateful to Chelsea, who is a wonderful partner
Speaker 14: to work with on this case. And I'm just grateful
Speaker 14: that I was able to have any sort of an
Speaker 14: impact on the line of these people who had met
Speaker 14: and who were hurt so badly by ed Buck, and
Speaker 14: that we were able to receive some sort of justice today.
Speaker 1: So thank you.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor, Lindsay Bailey points out what a chore it
Speaker 2: was for victims to testify. Ed Buck picked victims who
Speaker 2: wouldn't be believed, and we heard from those who testified
Speaker 2: that the police weren't kind. They would show up early
Speaker 2: in the morning to do interviews, and many of those
Speaker 2: who testified were still dealing with the horror of dredging
Speaker 2: up some of the worst moments of their lives.
Speaker 13: He took a tremendous amount of courage to do what
Speaker 13: they did. They did not want fifteen minutes of fame,
Speaker 13: as the defense counsel accused them of. They were viciously
Speaker 13: attacked on cross examination, and they held up remarkably, and
Speaker 13: I am so proud of how valiantly they testified and
Speaker 13: kept their heads hel high.
Speaker 2: It would be a victory to get nine guilties. Here's
Speaker 2: Corey McClain, one of Jamel Moore's friends over the years.
Speaker 2: He was there for most of the moments along the
Speaker 2: road to get ed Buck convicted.
Speaker 8: So this is Jamel's ashes, and I take him with me.
Speaker 8: I've spread them in Hawaii, in Miami, and in the
Speaker 8: Hollywood Hills, and on days like this, I like to
Speaker 8: wake them up to channel his energy and to answer
Speaker 8: your question about the sentencing. He feels like this a
Speaker 8: slap in the face, like thirty years is stupid.
Speaker 9: Like it is.
Speaker 8: However, we fought long and hard and it's been so draining.
Speaker 8: So we have to just accept this and move on.
Speaker 8: So hopefully we all find healing in peace. And I
Speaker 8: pray that everyone that's affected by this gets some type
Speaker 8: of counseling. If it's not by the government or someone
Speaker 8: that they can provide it to these victims that had
Speaker 8: to relive these situations over But from this moment on,
Speaker 8: I don't want to think of Jamail Moore and ed
Speaker 8: Buck in the same sentence. I want to separate the
Speaker 8: two and just find healing in peace from this moving forward,
Speaker 8: and thank you all for being a part of this journeys. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I travel the world, so everywhere I go, I take
Speaker 8: him with me, just so we can keep creating memories.
Speaker 8: Because I believe in energy. His energy is still here
Speaker 8: with us.
Speaker 2: The Fed's got their man. Ed Buck is likely to
Speaker 2: spend most of his life in the federal prison system
Speaker 2: when he gets out of jail. If he does, he
Speaker 2: will be ninety seven years old, nine and guilties. How
Speaker 2: does that feel?
Speaker 11: It's indescribable.
Speaker 2: Chelsea Norell was one of the lawyers tried ed Buck.
Speaker 11: It was the ultimate relief to be able to secure
Speaker 11: that for the people that had stood by this case
Speaker 11: from the beginning, for the victims, for the family of
Speaker 11: their loved ones who perished. It was it was surreal.
Speaker 11: I had in my mind and vision tearing those words,
Speaker 11: and it was out of body to actually hear them.
Speaker 11: Come back on the four year anniversary of Jimmelmore's death
Speaker 11: and have that be a new memory for his mom,
Speaker 11: who said that that was the worst day of her life.
Speaker 11: And now it's also the anniversary of the day she
Speaker 11: got justice for her son. And that's just a gift
Speaker 11: that I will always be so grateful for that. The
Speaker 11: jury returned on that day.
Speaker 2: At Buck's landlord filed to victim two months after he
Speaker 2: was arrested. It would only be a couple of months
Speaker 2: before the verdict in this case, before ed Buck's things
Speaker 2: were finally removed from one two three four North Laurel Avenue.
Speaker 2: Both families would pursue civil cases against Buck, but the
Speaker 2: case of the US versus ed Buck would end with
Speaker 2: ed Buck being found guilty. Here's Lindsey Bailey, the prosecutor.
Speaker 3: You know, sentencing is not necessarily just about the individual.
Speaker 3: It's about the message that it sends to the community
Speaker 3: as a whole. And so we were arguing specifically for
Speaker 3: a quote life sentence because we wanted to send the
Speaker 3: message to the community that like, it's not okay for
Speaker 3: you to pray on vulnerable people. It's not okay for
Speaker 3: you to assert power over people who have less power
Speaker 3: than you and really send that home to anybody else
Speaker 3: who who may be in that sort of a position.
Speaker 3: But look, at the end of the day, it was
Speaker 3: a thirty year sentence, which for someone like Buck, who
Speaker 3: is you know, a lifelong Matthews or in his sixties,
Speaker 3: is essentially going to be a life sentence. He's not
Speaker 3: just going to be walking around free after thirty years,
Speaker 3: if he's even still alive then. So I think we
Speaker 3: were disappointed in the sense of the message that a
Speaker 3: life sentence would have sent both to the community as
Speaker 3: a whole and to the families of the victims and
Speaker 3: the victims themselves that this is a case that was
Speaker 3: going to be taken seriously. But I think as a
Speaker 3: practical matter, you know, and I think my speculation is
Speaker 3: that this is what the judge was kind of going for,
Speaker 3: is that this is effectively a life sentence for him,
Speaker 3: even if it is not quote a life sentence.
Speaker 2: The defense would file a motion during the trial to
Speaker 2: ask the court to quit ed Buck before the jury
Speaker 2: could deliberate, because all the evidence hinged on quote the
Speaker 2: testimony of a parade of financially motivated, houseless individuals and
Speaker 2: drug addicts and should not have been believed. The judge
Speaker 2: denied the motion, and each of those guilty verdicts showed
Speaker 2: a jury did believe those black men. This is shattering
Speaker 2: the system more after this quick break, this is shattering
Speaker 2: the system. I'm Sinari Glinton. Ed Buck's crimes weren't in isolation.
Speaker 2: Jamel Moore died months before the Me Too movement began.
Speaker 2: In earnest, Bill Cosby would go on trial for allegedly
Speaker 2: drugging women in his home, and that was between the
Speaker 2: deaths of Jamal and Timothy. The porn actor Ron Jeremy
Speaker 2: was accused of drugging women not very far from ed
Speaker 2: Buck's apartment. Now, while Buck was awaiting trial, I got
Speaker 2: a call from a friend. He's a performer, let's call
Speaker 2: him Ricky. Ricky had been robbed at knife point by
Speaker 2: a date on a hookup app. The man stole thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars worth of equipment and even used my friend's
Speaker 2: self phone to steal money out of his bank account.
Speaker 2: It turns out that incident wasn't a one off. A
Speaker 2: man named Derek Patterson had been specifically robbing gay men
Speaker 2: on a dating app called Grinder. This time, the government's
Speaker 2: response would be very different than the way officials reacted
Speaker 2: to the deaths of Timothy Dean and Jamel Moore.
Speaker 7: My name's Jeremiah Levine, and I'm an assistant United States attorney.
Speaker 7: That's a federal prosecutor here in Los Angeles, which is
Speaker 7: the largest district of federal prosecution in the United States.
Speaker 2: Let's pick up with my interview with Levine as I
Speaker 2: was telling him the story of my friend who has
Speaker 2: robbed and assaulted. Help me understand what Patterson was accused
Speaker 2: of doing.
Speaker 7: Sure, Patterson is accused of a string of about twenty
Speaker 7: one robberies over the course of about three years. And
Speaker 7: during that string of robberies, he he exclusively targeted gay
Speaker 7: men who he met on the dating app Grinder, and
Speaker 7: when he met them, he used a gay dating culture
Speaker 7: in a way that allowed him to really violently exploit
Speaker 7: these men for robbery.
Speaker 2: Help me understand that, unpack that for people who may
Speaker 2: not understand that, Like, you know, you've gone Grinder and like,
Speaker 2: help me understand the like what happened if he showed
Speaker 2: up at your house, the allegation. Sure, so his EMO.
Speaker 7: What he did in most of the robberies is that
Speaker 7: he would use a profile on the dating app Grinder
Speaker 7: that looked alluring. He is a tall and handsome man,
Speaker 7: and he would use a pretty lurid handle, something like
Speaker 7: ten inches or eleven inches, which was intended to be
Speaker 7: a reference to the side of his penis, meant to
Speaker 7: be attractive, and he would use that profile to lure
Speaker 7: his intended victims into meeting with him. And on Grinder,
Speaker 7: it is fairly common that you will match with somebody,
Speaker 7: chat pretty briefly sometimes you know, a few minutes, and
Speaker 7: then be alone in private with that person with whom
Speaker 7: you've just matched in a matter of hours. And that's
Speaker 7: something that Patterson did. Typically with some of his victims.
Speaker 7: He would match with them on Grinder, put in very
Speaker 7: little time and effort, and then very quickly be alone
Speaker 7: with them. And that's one of the aspects of gay
Speaker 7: dating culture that he used to exploit. I think it's
Speaker 7: more common to be very rapidly alone with someone in
Speaker 7: Grinder culture than in other dating cultures. So once Patterson
Speaker 7: was in the residence, he would typically say, hey, can
Speaker 7: I use your phone to look at porn so we
Speaker 7: can get ready to have sex. That's another thing that
Speaker 7: I think would be would maybe send up more of
Speaker 7: an alarm bell in another dating culture, but in grinder
Speaker 7: dating culture that didn't seem to be particularly off putting
Speaker 7: to anybody. So he would right away get inside and
Speaker 7: get the person's phone. Once he had the person's phone,
Speaker 7: ostensibly to look at porn to get ready for the
Speaker 7: sexual encounter, he would start transferring the victim's money to himself.
Speaker 7: Sometimes he would go straight from hey, can I have
Speaker 7: my phone back please, to beating the person or pepper
Speaker 7: spraying the person. Other times he would say that he
Speaker 7: had a gun and that he was going to murder
Speaker 7: the person. Sometimes he would go get a kitchen knife
Speaker 7: and chase the victim around, slashing at them, sometimes actually
Speaker 7: stabbing them with the knife, and eventually shortly thereafter he
Speaker 7: would make off with the phone, and then after he
Speaker 7: had left the presence of the victim, continue to use
Speaker 7: the phone to transfer himself money from their zell, from
Speaker 7: their Venmo, from their cash app, and also to use
Speaker 7: the purchasing power on their phone, whether through Apple Pay
Speaker 7: or some other mobile payment device, to purchase goods and services.
Speaker 2: So, I mean some of these allegations are this has
Speaker 2: so many threads in so many gay stories, right, you
Speaker 2: could think of it as six degrees you know, it's
Speaker 2: six degrees of separation. It's connected to you know, it's
Speaker 2: connected to that buck. There was like so many you know,
Speaker 2: using But the extraordinaryness of some of the things, like
Speaker 2: the one that stands out to me is the opening
Speaker 2: up a line of credit.
Speaker 7: So the next kind of level of complexity up is
Speaker 7: he would make purchases. He would some of these. Some
Speaker 7: of his vic had Apple pay, so he would go
Speaker 7: and purchase electronics, for example, I think he purchased air pods.
Speaker 7: He then he the kind of the next level of
Speaker 7: complexity up is he would sometimes purchase services. He would purchase,
Speaker 7: on several occasions, nights at hotel rooms in Los Angeles.
Speaker 7: And then he would also because he had all the
Speaker 7: details of his victims and access to their accounts, he
Speaker 7: would even open up lines of credit. So I believe
Speaker 7: with Goldman. I believe that Apple has a partnership with
Speaker 7: Goldman Sachs. One of Patterson's victims already had an Apple
Speaker 7: iTunes account, and Patterson parlayed that Apple account into a
Speaker 7: new line of credit with Goldman. So pretty sophisticated means.
Speaker 2: Part of what makes this frightening is the number of
Speaker 2: like for Grinder to work or these things to work,
Speaker 2: the number of times that a gay man invites another
Speaker 2: man that he does not know after you know, a
Speaker 2: group of conversations that are like sup looking I mean
Speaker 2: like one, I mean emojis sometimes yeah, and that and that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean the number of times I've thought,
Speaker 2: did you just give me the code to your apartment building?
Speaker 2: Which I will I just will remember because this is
Speaker 2: a historic building. And but like, literally that is that's
Speaker 2: happened me. It's so unbelievably frightening.
Speaker 7: It's possible that this happens a lot more than we realize,
Speaker 7: and that victims don't feel like they can they can
Speaker 7: risk exposing themselves by talking to law enforcement, or maybe
Speaker 7: they don't feel ashamed, but they don't feel like they're
Speaker 7: likely to get their due from law enforcement. Patterson could
Speaker 7: have evaded detection for much longer, and in fact, he
Speaker 7: did evade detection for years. It's a fairly you can
Speaker 7: have a fake Grinder profile, and these days you can
Speaker 7: wear a mask as You're walking into a building without
Speaker 7: arousing a whole lot of suspicion and remain anonymous relative
Speaker 7: to the security cameras in there, and perpetrayed a crime
Speaker 7: pretty anonymously. So I think this may happen more than
Speaker 7: we realize.
Speaker 2: You know, the resolution of the case is pretty swift,
Speaker 2: relatively speaking, and strong. So help me understand one hundred
Speaker 2: and eleven months in federal prison for targeting and robbing
Speaker 2: gay men in Los Angeles, eighty four thousand dollars in restitution.
Speaker 2: But the key seems to be the hate crime part.
Speaker 2: I mean, how often I remember many years ago the
Speaker 2: thought of a gay man being charged with a hate
Speaker 2: crime was an anomaly. How far have we come in
Speaker 2: the fifteen years. Tell me the facts of what the
Speaker 2: judge did and what does this mean.
Speaker 7: The law that applies here with regard to hate crime
Speaker 7: enhancement is that if a criminal targets a victim because
Speaker 7: of the victims perceived sexual orientation, and if the government
Speaker 7: can prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, then the defendant
Speaker 7: is subject to a higher sense. There's a couple key
Speaker 7: things in there. One is the targeting has to be
Speaker 7: because of the perceived sexual orientation. That's all. If anybody
Speaker 7: targets a gay person because they are gay, they're subject
Speaker 7: to a hate crime enhancement. So what's really important there
Speaker 7: is that I didn't say hate. Patterson need not hate
Speaker 7: his victims. A person can be a member of the
Speaker 7: group that they are targeting and still be subject to
Speaker 7: the hate crime enhancement. So in that way, hate is
Speaker 7: a little bit that hate crime enhancement is a little
Speaker 7: bit of a misnomer. Anytime criminal targets gay people or
Speaker 7: members of certain other groups because of their perceived membership
Speaker 7: in those groups, they can be subject to the hate
Speaker 7: crime enhancement.
Speaker 2: Can you help draw the parallels and the distinctions between
Speaker 2: at Buck and say Derek Patterson.
Speaker 7: I can tell you that in both instances, the defendants
Speaker 7: preyed on vulnerable victims. Criminals prey on vulnerable victims. Sometimes
Speaker 7: those people are economically disadvantaged, sometimes they are immigrants, and
Speaker 7: sometimes they are members of the sexual preference minority. That
Speaker 7: the vulnerability of the victims is what I think draws
Speaker 7: those cases together. I think it's really important not to
Speaker 7: accidentally do any blame shifting or even sound like we're
Speaker 7: doing any blame shifting. It is a great thing that
Speaker 7: we have reached a place where gay people can be
Speaker 7: proud and can be meeting easily and online and not
Speaker 7: in secret. That is fantastic. That is not the problem.
Speaker 7: The problem is that there are bad people out there
Speaker 7: exploiting it. There is a case in Texas where criminals
Speaker 7: used grinder to kidnap victims, and some of the kidnappers
Speaker 7: self identified as bisexual. So Patterson is not the only
Speaker 7: person who who's using this hack.
Speaker 2: In our next episode, with ed Buck in prison, we
Speaker 2: wanted to gaze the impact his crimes had on the
Speaker 2: black queer community in Los Angeles and why black victims
Speaker 2: are so often ignored. That's next on Shattering the System.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. Shattering the System is a production
Speaker 2: of Macro Studios and iHeart Podcasts. I'm Your Host, Snari Glinton,
Speaker 2: Follow me at so O naar I one on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Our series executive producers are Charles King, Asha Corpus, Win
Speaker 2: Royo Reccio, Jonathan Hunger, Lindsay Hoffman, and Scenario Glinton.
Speaker 5: That's Me.
Speaker 2: Our show is co written and produced by Ralph Cooper.
Speaker 2: The third Erica Rodriguez, is our associate producer Dana Conway
Speaker 2: is our archival producer. Chris Mann is our audio engineer.
Speaker 2: Sound design and music provided by Chris Mann with pod
Speaker 2: Shaper Special thanks to Karen Grigsby, Bates Portia, Amigas Robertson
Speaker 2: and Lisa Pollock.
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