Ed Buck's Lawyer Says Victims Died of AIDS, Heart Attack in Hearing
he was convicted of in 2021, and grant him a new trial. The charges were in connection with the deaths of two Black gay men and the drug overdoses of multiple others.Judge Snyder began the hearing by doubling down on her previously issued tentative decision to deny Ed Buck’s motion for judgment acquittal but acknowledged that his attorney would probably want to make oral arguments.“I’ve reviewed the papers,” said Judge Snyder. “I have reviewed all of the supplemental material provided by Mr.
Werksman. I am not inclined to grant Defendant’s motion for judgment acquittal, nor do I think there’s an appropriate basis for a new trial.”A motion for judgment of acquittal rests on the claim that the evidence at trial was insufficient for a conviction.
In July 2021, after a jury deliberated for more than four hours following a two-week trial, Ed Buck, 66, was found guilty of nine felony counts in federal court.
Charges included distributing drugs and running a drug den amongst other things. The verdict came exactly four years after Gemmel Moore, one of Buck's victims, died.Attorney Mark Werksman, who also represents disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, said in his oral arguments that there was an overwhelming prejudice created by an abundance of evidence designed to make Buck look like a “racist sexual deviant.”“The court has a duty to ensure that the jury doesn’t get carried away by passion or prejudice,” argued Werksman. “And when a presentation is made that goes over the top with extraneous uncharged graphic conduct, it can tip the scale in favor of a conviction for grounds that we’ll never know whether they were based upon the facts related to the actual charged counts, or the charged conduct, or if the jury wasn’t simply.
