Dane Brown, man who survived overdose at Ed Buck's home, found dead on South LA sidewalk
Dane Brown, the man who survived multiple drug overdoses at former political donor Ed Buck's home and is in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit against him, was found dead in South Los Angeles last week.
The news comes five years after Brown ran from Buck's West Hollywood apartment, the moment that led to his conviction in federal court for running a drug den and providing the narcotics that killed Gemmel Moore in 2017 and Timothy Dean in 2019.
Prosecutors said that Buck would lure young, gay Black men to his home where he would inject them with increasing amounts of drugs until they became comatose, all for his sexual pleasure.
Brown, 43 when he died, was one of those men, until he regained consciousness and escaped from the apartment and told police what happened.
Read more: Prosecutor describes "Party and Play" sessions at Ed Buck's West Hollywood apartment
His friend and journalist Jasmyne Cannick, spoke about his death on Tuesday.
"I am extremely sad. I mean, for me, I look at this like the continue effects of Ed Buck on our community," Cannick said. She believes that her friend was never able to outrun the impact of what happened to him.
Buck, 70, who was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 30 years in prison, was also the subject of a lawsuit filed by Brown, which was expected to go to trial in early 2025.
His complaint alleges sexual battery, assault, hate violence, negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and human trafficking.
Cannick says that the lawsuit will continue despite Browns' death.
"I don't know that Ed Buck would have ever been arrested had Dane not been in the picture," Cannick said.
She's one of many activists that say Buck's behavior was ignored for years, even after the two men overdosed and died. They believe it was because they were poor and viewed as drug-addicted prostitutes.
"I don't want Ed Buck to feel like, 'Oh, well he's gone and I don't have to pay.' No. You should absolutely still pay for the harm and trauma that you caused that man," Cannick said.
Brown's lawsuit claims that he met Buck on Adam4Adam, an online dating site for gay men, in 2019. Over the course of the next two months, Buck would send ride-hailing cars to a Skid Row hotel where Brown lived in order to get him to his apartment.
Upon arriving at Bucks' apartment for the first time, Brown says that the two had sex and that Buck provided methamphetamine, which he both smoked and used intravenously, the lawsuit said. Buck would continue to provide the drugs to Brown as he stayed in the apartment from July to September in 2019.
The lawsuit further notes that Buck intravenously injected meth into Brown on Sept. 4 2019 and a week later, both instances which led him to overdose and require hospitalization.
Brown's lawsuit also says that Buck gave him the date rape drug GHB, or gamma hydroxybutyrate, during the second incident. Buck then allegedly refused to call an ambulance for Brown, forcing him to instead walk across the street to a service station, where an employee called 911 on his behalf, the lawsuit said.
He survived both overdoses and testified against Buck during his trial in U.S. District Court in 2021. Buck was found guilty of committing all nine crimes for which he was charged, including two counts of violating distribution of methamphetamine resulting in death.
"Walking out of that house, I didn't know what was going to happen next," Brown said on the courthouse steps after Buck's conviction. "I didn't know all this was gonna happen. But, I'm so happy and so relieved that these families can get the justice they deserve."
Over the course of his career, Buck was a candidate for a seat on the West Hollywood City Council and had donated more than half a million dollars to Democratic Party politicians and causes.