WEBVTT - Ep. 7 - Shattering The System: "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.880 In this podcast, we're going to talk frankly but sensitively 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:07.040 about issues some people might find disturbing, including rape and suicide. 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:10.320 If you or someone you know is suicidal in the 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:13.840 US down nine to eighty eight, check out this podcast 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.840 notes page for information on LGBT plus mental health resources 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:18.799 in your community. 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:25.280 Let's do a recap of the case of ed Buck 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:27.640 and the key people who got us to this episode. 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.400 There is Jamel Moore, who died in the apartment of 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:35.000 ed Buck on July twenty seventh, twenty nineteen. Then there 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:39.280 was Timothy Dean, the second victim. Timothy Dean's roommate Otavio 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:42.720 today remembers him as being full of life. 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:48.560 Timothy carried himself very elegantly and was a muscular, tall, 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:53.320 good looking man and if you saw him on the streets, 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.760 you know it's not a person that can pass completely unnoticed. 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.600 Then there was the last victim, John Doe calling him 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.640 for now, who likely escaped with his life from ed 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:08.240 Buck's apartment on September eleventh, twenty nineteen, after he was 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:12.240 injected with an off the charts amount of meth amphetamine. 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.760 And then there is LA's District Attorney Jackie Lacy, who 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.840 decided at first not to charge at Buck. She was 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.480 the first black person or woman to be the La 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.840 County District Attorney, and she would be criticized for being 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:27.040 way too careful. 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.039 And there's a responsibility with that. You want to not 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:35.520 just be the first person of your race or the 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.920 first woman, You want to be the best right and 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.440 so you want to make sure that you do things 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.360 for the right reasons, that you never embarrassed the office, 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:47.920 that you achieved, that you accomplish things. 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.600 To this day, Jackie Lacy says she couldn't have gotten 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.240 a conviction for ed Buck. Her office says that the 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:59.040 evidence that they had was quote insufficient to prove beyond 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.680 a reasonable doubt that Buck is responsible for the death 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:06.800 of Jamel Moore. Likewise, the admissible evidence is insufficient to 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:10.800 prove beyond the reasonable doubt that suspect Buck furnished drugs 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:16.239 to Jamel Moore, or that suspect Buck possessed drugs. And 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:21.400 then finally there is ed Buck. When ed Buck was 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.160 arrested on September seventeenth, twenty nineteen, he was not arrested 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.080 on charges of murder. He was not arrested on the 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.560 lesser charge of manslaughter even though two men died in 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:35.800 this apartment of nearly identical circumstances. So what did the 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.200 Feds get ed Buck on? What new evidence did they 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.079 suddenly have that they didn't have since Jamel Moore died 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.760 in twenty seventeen or Timothy Dean died in twenty nineteen, 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.840 while they had a living victim who could connect the 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:53.960 dots between ed Buck and meth amfetamine. Buck was accused 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:58.120 of distribution of meth amphetamine resulting in death. In addition, 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.080 he was charged with maintaining a drug invol premises an 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.800 enticement to travel and interstate commerce for prostitution. With ed 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:09.040 Buck and jail, now is the time to build a 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:14.840 federal case and prosecutors will need witnesses. The potential witnesses 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:17.440 to the horrors in ed Buck's apartment would be the 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.800 key to putting him into jail. It was in the 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.600 months before at Buck's arrest the nation would be gripped 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:33.120 by Black Lives Matter protests. These same witnesses, who had 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:37.520 been ignored by the local police. Ed Bucket called the 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.040 sheriff to his home where he was injecting black men. 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:48.080 The sheriff took the victims away. This is the same 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.280 sheriff that has a history of harassing black men and 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:56.040 queermen in West Hollywood, and now two white women federal 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:59.760 prosecutors would have to gain the trust of gay black 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:05.960 men used to being ignored. This is shattering the system. 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.839 I'm your host, scenario, Glinton. We'll hear what really led 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.440 prosecutors to take on the case, and we'll hear from 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:17.120 a defense attorney about why black, queer and transfolk need 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.919 to be very careful around law enforcement. 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.919 Always that has been my experience of how prosecutors and 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:29.440 police officers treat witnesses as completely disposable, as completely at 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:33.360 their disposal, and they don't give a damn about you 0:04:33.760 --> 0:04:36.719 unless you are helping them get to their conviction. So 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:40.479 I understand the Dona snitch rule, but from a completely 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:41.520 different vantage point. 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.280 Before prosecutors can convince a jury, they're going to need 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:52.760 to convince witnesses black men to trust the police in 0:04:52.800 --> 0:05:04.400 the federal government more after this, this is shattering the system. 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.880 I'm your host, Snari Glenton. While recording for this show, 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.000 I wandered into something typical for West Hollywood. A protest 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.720 politics can be fun in West Hollywood, and ed Buck 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.000 certainly joined in. For those in the know, like Ed Buck, 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:25.880 the WIHO City Council can be fun, wacky, and impactful. 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.279 Before twenty seventeen, Ed Buck was a political donor who 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.640 lived in a rent stabilized apartment in the city of 0:05:34.640 --> 0:05:36.720 West Hollywood. Now, if we were going to give you 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.400 a snapshot of the man, say pre twenty seventeen, we'd 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.320 call ed Buck a former Republican term Democrat who made 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.640 a good deal of money as a young man and 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.600 moved to West Hollywood, where he became an outspoken animal 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.640 rights activist and a supporter of LGBTQ causes. Actually, by 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.919 all accounts, it was only gay men's causes. Buck was 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.000 one of the most prolific donors. He gave nearly half 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.400 a half a million dollars to Democratic candidates over thirty years. 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:05.960 And that may not seem like a lot, but whether 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:08.599 it was say a school board race or spots on 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:12.680 the West Hollywood City Council, it goes far. Buck gave 0:06:12.839 --> 0:06:16.440 money to everyone from John Duran, a local politician and 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:20.960 weho to Hillary Clinton's bid for president. Ed Buck gave 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.640 money a lot, and that's how the media saw him. 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:27.760 It's been three months since twenty six year old Jamil 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:30.000 Moore was found dead at the West Hollywood home of 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.160 wealthy Democratic donor Ed Buck. Moore's mother, Letitia Nixon, has 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.240 pressed police to continue the investigation into her son, Jamel's 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.640 mysterious death and to interview other black men about the 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.560 experiences with Buck. Buck, who has not been arrested or 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:47.880 charged with any crime, has donated hundreds of thousands of 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.080 dollars to Democratic candidates and Cause US over the years. 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.680 Jamil Moore's friends and family have lost a petition calling 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.880 on Democrats to return Buck's money. So far, only one 0:06:58.360 --> 0:06:58.960 has done so. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.960 Jackie Lacey, the local Democratic prosecutor, had previously said she 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.159 wasn't able to press charges against ed Buck, and while 0:07:07.160 --> 0:07:11.280 the sheriff's office essentially bungled the case, the same sheriff's 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.200 office would go over the head of the local prosecutors 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:17.080 to the federal government. This is the part where the 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.360 local reporter and me has to come out. One of 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:23.560 the local sheriff's deputies tipped off the Justice Department. That 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.040 is what got the ball rolling. Now, this is where 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.280 timing seems important. Jackie Lacey, the local DA a Democrat 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.520 would be up for reelection, and there was a Trump 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:37.760 appointed US attorney Nick Hanna. Now, Nick Hanna says the 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.560 case against Buck started long before his arrest in September 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.440 twenty nineteen. Hannah says it was the opioid crisis that 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.440 got him thinking of ways to put ed Buck in prison. 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:53.520 It was the full of two thy eighteen, so at 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:58.280 that point, the opioid crisis was really coming into consciousness 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:02.160 right and we were seeing being much like Cleveland and 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.200 some other areas, we were seeing a lot of people 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:06.960 starting to overdose on fentanyl. 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:11.880 Hanna says. Historically, overdoses were treated more like an accident 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.560 in judgment, and police showed up and saw drug paraphernalia 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.960 and a dead body. While it might have been tragic, 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.040 they really didn't treat it as a criminal offense. But 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.280 the opioid crisis changed a lot of that thinking. 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:28.160 And we were seeing people selling counterfeit pills that were 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.840 laced with fentanyl, so people thought they were taking a xanax, 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.440 take it it's fentanyl and they would die. We were 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:39.800 seeing instances of drug dealers knowingly killing somebody and then 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.160 going off and selling more of the same product to 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:43.720 other people. 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.840 Former La County DA Jackie Lacey said that the Feds 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:51.560 had more resources, money, and people. They also had a 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.199 variety of federal laws, including one with a twenty year 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.320 prison sentence attached that made it a crime to give 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.360 someone drugs that result in death. Nick Hannah says when 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.840 he became US attorney, he was startled by the number 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:06.280 of overdose. 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:09.160 Deaths, spike and overdose deaths, and a lot of it 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.920 was attributable to people who were selling drugs laced with 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.760 federol and knowingly doing it and killing people, right, and 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:19.240 so you know, that seemed to be an area crying 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.680 out for somebody to do something about it. 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.280 It was Nick Hannah who assigned the prosecutors to take 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.000 a look at the information the Sheriff's department brought to him. 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:30.680 He had the Drug Enforcement Administration take a look at 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:32.840 the case as well. 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.760 And see what we thought, and see whether we thought 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.440 the evidence, you know, what the evidence was, what had 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.720 already been gathered, what additional investigative steps could be taken, 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.040 and whether or not we thought this was something that 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:44.720 merited a federal prosecution. 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:49.640 Now, remember, it never hurts for a federal prosecutor to 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:54.319 dunk on a local prosecutor of another party, especially as 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.360 an election looms. Nick Hannah says, this wasn't about politics, 0:09:58.640 --> 0:09:59.800 it was about something more. 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.800 Ba You know, a case like ed Buck cries out 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:07.240 for prosecution, cries out for someone to do you know, 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.720 an investigation cries out for somebody to go to jail. 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:12.760 And you know, we were I think maybe in the 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:14.800 right spot at the right time, with the right statute 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.640 to do that. This is about somebody killing people in 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:21.959 his apartment. The mantra of the office is to prosecute 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.560 federal crimes without fear or favor and try to do 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:27.720 our best with the resources we have to make an 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.080 impact on the community and vindicate the rights of victims. 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.920 This is shattering the system. The federal case against ed Buck, 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.520 This is shattering the system. I'm Sinari Glinton. We left 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.280 off with ed Buck and jail and prosecutors building the 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.400 case to take him to trial. I talked extensively with 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.560 the US Attorney's office and with one of the key 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.200 lawyers for ed Buck. We've heard from the defense, and 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.839 we will definitely hear from the lawyer for ed Buck 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:03.720 again later on in this story. The thing is for 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.920 this story to be transparent. I didn't want the only 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:10.400 voice that's critical of the police or law enforcement to 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:12.840 be the lawyer for ed Buck, and I didn't want 0:11:12.880 --> 0:11:15.400 to be a shill for federal prosecutors. 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:17.120 Defans take their time. 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:20.559 That's April Prayer. She's a criminal defense attorney. 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.880 They don't rush and arrest you in two or three days. 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.120 They might take two or three years for research and 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.560 investigates you and get video and audio and all your 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:32.720 bank statements, and talk to all of your friends and 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:35.840 get them all on a record before they come for you. 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.280 Like I said, I needed someone to balance out the 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:42.200 many law enforcement voices we've been hearing, and I wanted 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:44.559 to get the perspective of someone who knows what's at 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.839 stake for black men when they encounter law enforcement. I've 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:50.400 known April Prayer for many years. She was a classmate. 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.320 The thing is, she's made it her mission to teach 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.400 young people, particularly young black and queer folks, what to 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.320 do if they come in contact with the police. Just 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.839 board game and teachers high school kids about their rights. 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:09.400 I'm very I'm very anti police and anti prosecutors. 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:10.880 See what I mean. I wanted to give you a 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.680 sense of what is a stake. Before we go too 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.960 far down the road of demonizing Jackie Lacy, let's remember 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.199 that the Feds could pay special attention to ed Buck, 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.880 and they had tools that a local prosecutor just doesn't have. 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.600 April prayer, the defense attorney says, for those rooting for 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:29.920 ed Buck to go to jail for a long time, 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:34.079 a defendant has a much higher conviction rate with the Feds. 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.480 You have a truly uphill battle in federal court. Now 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.720 there are exceptions to that rule, because I've actually won 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.840 a federal case, but for the most part of the 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:44.720 Fiths come for you. They got you, and there's not 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:45.920 a whole lot you can do about it. 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:49.240 To give me an idea, there is a government evidence list. 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:52.240 It's fifteen pages long. When you read it, it kind of 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.719 gives you an idea of how deep the government can 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:57.800 dig when they really want to get you. There's stuff 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.560 you might expect on a drug case, syringes, a ziploc 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:05.600 back with a crystalline substance. There's hard drive after hard 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:09.920 drives of incriminating videos of Bucks fex play, six costume 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.480 masks and one modified military style gas mask. And it's 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.480 not just his computer and hard drives. The government swept 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.240 up everything from his iCloud to Uber and Lift receipts 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:24.480 to the purchase records of his Forward Edge and Nissan Morano. 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.360 Then there's more than a dozen videos of Jamel Moore 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.680 and here's the key part. Videos of Buck instructing victims 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.600 to do met like Exhibits seventy nine point twenty seven 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.360 a video clip of Buck instructing an unidentified man on 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.960 how to smoke. The lead attorney in the case against 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.280 ed Buck for the federal government was Lindsey Bailey. She 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.120 says that ed Buck was a different kind of criminal 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:50.520 and needed a different kind of prosecution. 0:13:53.160 --> 0:13:55.400 So this happens a lot in a lot of our 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:58.959 cases where there baby state charges that someone can bring, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.600 but the federal charges have a lot more power behind them. Right, So, 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.720 especially with these types of death resulting cases, we have 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:12.680 a federal statute available to us that imposes a twenty 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:16.000 year mandatory minimum if somebody's found guilty, and. 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:18.920 In California, Bailey says, there was no local law that 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:23.520 was as strong as the federal twenty year mandatory minimum. Essentially, 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.000 the Feds had a much bigger book to throw. 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:31.760 At Buck, because we have this power behind our statutes 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.480 that the state doesn't have. Sometimes we will bring things 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.920 instead of the state, and you know, sometimes that's coordinated 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.000 ahead of time. Sometimes the state brings charges that they 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.080 then dismiss in favor of federal charges. So I think 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.520 when you talk about this case with someone like ed Buck, 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:52.240 who you know is a danger to society and we 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.000 were hoping to put him away for a significant period 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.440 of time, the amount of time that we were looking 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:03.160 at federally was just heads and shoulders above whatever the 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:04.680 state was going to be able to bring. 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.280 So ed Buck, in your mind, is a special case. 0:15:07.400 --> 0:15:09.960 Yes, I would say most of the death resulting cases 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.440 that our office does are not rising to the level 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:17.320 of criminality that you see with mister Buck, where you're 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.120 having not a single individual overdose, but multiple people overdosing 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:26.720 in his apartments. You're finding videos of him being very 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:31.160 controlling over these people, providing them with drugs against their 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:34.280 will in certain cases, providing them with amounts that are 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.720 known to be extreme, as opposed to let's say your 0:15:37.800 --> 0:15:40.200 average dealer, who like you, may be soliciting. 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.080 Chelsea Narel was one of the lawyers that the US 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:49.800 Attorney charts with prosecuting ed Buck's case. 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:52.400 I knew that this was going to be a case 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.720 that rose or fell with victim testimony, and you. 0:15:56.680 --> 0:15:59.520 Can say she handles the toughest cases. 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:04.760 I focus specifically on human trafficking and child exploitation, but 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:08.960 we also have the largest influx of drugs likely in 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.440 the country, certainly in California. We see it on our 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:13.560 southern border. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.880 The key difference between where the FED started and where 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.520 the local prosecutor started was victim testimony. 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.800 There was not going to be a person who could 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:27.440 say I saw ed Buck administer those drugs because ed 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:29.920 Buck had killed the two people who could say that 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.600 those were our two death victims in the first two deaths. 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:39.400 So my strategy was to interview as many victims as 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:45.480 we possibly could to get those commonalities to build a 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:51.360 very strong, weaved narrative of these witness accounts that could 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.080 talk about how Buck was always the one who distributed 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.160 drugs because it was part of his ritual of party 0:16:58.200 --> 0:16:58.640 and play. 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:02.320 The federal process secutors had to put together a story 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.040 that a jury would understand. 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.920 That when Jamel Moore went to ed Buck's apartment on 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.840 July twenty seventh, of twenty seventeen that it could only 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.480 have been ed Buck who provided the drugs, because we 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:19.040 had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to twelve jurors 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.840 that it was in fact Buck who distributed the drugs, 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:26.240 and that the drugs were the Butt four causation, meaning 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:31.400 the direct result of the death of the two victims. 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.080 So to me, it was a matter of getting those 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:40.760 victims to interview and memorializing those interviews, developing trust with them, 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:41.840 earning their trust. 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.359 This is the key difference between the local prosecutor and 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.679 the feds. The resources. Let's hear from April Prayer, the 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:51.879 defence attorney, who doesn't have ties to this case. She says, 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.399 the FEDS are more highly trained and they print their 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:56.280 own money. 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.920 And because they're more highly trained and have better resource 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.720 and can do a really thorough investigation, they have a 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:09.080 ninety five percent plus conviction rate, whereas if you look 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:13.680 on the state level or the city level, at different municipalities, 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.200 if you're looking at police departments or sheriff's departments, they 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:19.040 don't have a lot of resources. 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.560 April Prayer, the defense attorney, says, on the local level, 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:26.639 especially if it's a smaller town, there isn't always the money, 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.440 the people, or the training for a tough case. 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.199 Especially if it's a murder investigation. They may not have 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:35.600 done many they may not know how to do them 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.399 well because they haven't done them often. They don't have 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.119 a lot of resources to devote to it, and so 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.320 they're going to make a mess of it. And so 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:47.280 there are a lot of different things that separate the 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.080 FED from the local authorities that may have nothing to 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:55.080 do with anything being nefarious. They don't have a whole 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.040 lot of practice at this and they don't have a 0:18:57.040 --> 0:19:01.560 whole lot of resources. So that's why you'll see a 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:05.520 conviction rate in pretty much any state or county being 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.840 far lower than you will at the federal level in 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:09.800 that very same state. 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.919 And in this case, you had a full time lawyer 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:17.360 for the Justice Department investigating everything about ed Buck's life. 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.720 Here's Chelsea NoREL again. She's with the US Attorney's Office 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:24.440 for the Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:25.639 and West Hollywood. 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.800 So we had to go through hundreds of thousands of files. 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.680 Her job was to make a case stick against ed Buck. 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:40.399 I watched personally thirty thousand videos from Bucks hard drive 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.880 of him engaged in party and play with various men. 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:49.000 So that took me years, and it was every day 0:19:49.560 --> 0:19:52.679 twenty four to seven, no days. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.520 Off, I mean years living in that darkness. Tell me 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:56.080 about that. 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.640 It's haunting. And this was during the pandemic, so I 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:04.560 was siloed often on my own working on this at home. 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.040 But they haunt you. And the only thing I can 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.240 say about how I cope with it is I also 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:14.960 look at child sexual abuse materials for my job, so 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.920 I am unfortunately used to looking at very disturbing images. 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:22.720 It was by combing through all those videos that would 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.960 allow the FEDS to corroborate the allegations against ed Buck. 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.000 They needed, however, witnesses. These were people who had been 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.760 prepared to tell local prosecutors what had happened to them, 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:36.320 but they weren't believed. And then when police would eventually 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.240 question the victims. Remember the only training share of deputies 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:44.200 got with the LGBTQ community was on flags. They would 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.280 do it in the most hand fisted way you might expect, 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:51.919 being insensitive, showing up to people's homes for interviews early 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.600 early in the morning, essentially you know, being the police. 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:58.600 Chelsea Narel would have to work against all of that. 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.679 And it was by showing mel and Timothy's families that 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:06.159 she meant business that would help prosecutors convince victims to testify. 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:12.359 Not convicting was not in my frame of mind. It 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.960 was not something that I even considered to be an option. 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.800 The anxiety and the stress of this case was how 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:25.920 am I going to get to hearing guilty nine times? 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:31.120 That's what stayed with me, That's what kept me up 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:34.240 at night. How I was going to hear guilty nine times? 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:37.800 How I was going to get that for Letitia Nixon, 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:42.080 Jamal Moore's mom, and Joanne Campbell and Joyce Jackson, two 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.960 of Timothy Dean's sisters, who all of whom supported me 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:47.440 tremendously through this case. 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:53.760 A drug addict is less likely to be believed than 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:54.480 the average person. 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.959 Now, April Prayer, the defense attorney, says, as terrible as 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.719 the crimes of ed Buck are, she would have been 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:03.919 reluctant to advise any of his victims to talk to 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.640 prosecutors for a variety of reasons. 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.639 So that's a starting point. But just in my experience 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.879 dealing with a client who is a drug addict, and 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.479 pick your drug of choice. That means there might be 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:18.760 gaps in your memory. That means that you recounting something 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:22.200 to me might be unliable. It means that you might 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.240 not intentionally be trying to deceive me, but you might 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:28.520 have holes in your memory because of whatever drug you're on. 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:33.000 So those are some initial problems that you would have 0:22:33.160 --> 0:22:34.520 just because of the drug addiction. 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.280 In many ways, the prosecutors were the last people along 0:22:38.320 --> 0:22:41.399 the gauntlet that the potential witnesses would likely talk to. 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.280 April Prayer, the defense attorney, says she would have us 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.639 remember that these were black men who were being told 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:51.200 that their civic duty was to talk to the police. 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.919 Her number one piece of advice to black men especially, 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:01.840 be extremely careful with any interaction with the police, especially 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.879 for people like Jamel Moore or any of ed Buck's 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:08.440 nameless victims, people who are living in la far away 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:10.320 from their core family support. 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:13.960 You need to be even more careful when interacting with 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:19.240 law enforcement. And if you are gay, lesbie and trans, 0:23:19.480 --> 0:23:24.439 I'm gonna multiply that by about ten times because I 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:31.920 have seen horble discrimination, horrible physical abuse by police against 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:38.200 gay people here and across the nation, and I would 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.720 also say, specifically, if you're a trance and I've seen 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:47.919 terrible discrimination in the courts by female judges against trans women. 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.679 In the courts, it's played out injuries, it's played out 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.960