The authorities found Dean when they responded around 1 a.m. Monday to a 911 call about a person in a West Hollywood apartment who was unconscious and not breathing.
Detectives in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department quickly turned their attention to Buck because they had visited the same residence under similar circumstances in July 2017. At that time, they found another man, Gemmel Moore, 26, naked and dead of a drug overdose on a mattress in Buck’s living room.
Dean and Moore were black, which raised suspicions among political activists and critics of Buck, a 64-year-old white man who has given more than $116,000 to Democratic candidates and groups in the past decade or so. Protesters have gathered outside Buck’s apartment to demand justice for Dean and Moore.
“He will not stop,” LaTisha Nixon, Moore’s mother, wrote on Facebook this week. “He will continue to hurt and kill black men. There are 2 people now that have lost their lives..#justice4gemmel”
A lawyer for Buck, Seymour I. Amster, said Thursday that his client and Dean had been friends for 25 years. He said that Dean had “ingested some type of substance” before arriving at Buck’s apartment and that Buck had tried to resuscitate him.
The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office identified Dean but has not released a cause of death. The sheriff’s department has not named Buck as a suspect.
But the authorities said that homicide detectives were among the officials who responded to Buck’s residence Monday and that they would open a review of their investigation into Moore’s death and conduct new interviews. Buck was not charged in that death.
Amster said his client was innocent in both deaths.
Mark Chambers, a longtime friend of Dean confirmed that Dean had been friends with Buck but also expressed concern that his friend’s character was under attack in the aftermath of his death.
“I’ve known Tim for 30 years,” Chambers said in a phone interview Thursday. “He’s not an angel and he’s not a devil. He is in between, just like everybody else.”
Chambers said his friend was a fashion stylist who had long worked in retail, including at Bloomingdale’s and most recently at Saks Fifth Avenue. Dean posted about his job on Instagram, sharing photos of high-end men’s shoes and bags, and asking followers to come shop with him. He also looked the part. “Going to work this morning!” he wrote in October alongside a photo of himself in a slim-fitting suit with a stylish pocket square.
He had worked to expand his horizons in recent years, according to Chambers, who said Dean obtained an associate degree in 2015 and was baptized last year.
“I’m surviving and thriving in my life right now,” Dean wrote on Facebook after his baptism. “I will never have everything all figured out at once, but I have enough sorted out now that I can honestly say I’m happy, healthy and centered.”
Chambers, who founded the National Gay Basketball Association, said Dean also spent many years competing in basketball leagues and the Gay Games, an international sporting event modeled after the Olympics, including last year’s Games in Paris.
Dean was a passionate player who loved to make a show of catching a rebound, Chambers said. “His initials were TMD, and it also stood for ‘Too Much Drama,'” he said. “He was the reigning champ of the Most Dramatic Award on the basketball court.”
Off the court, Dean was a close friend who helped dress Chambers and his husband in Armani tuxedos for their wedding. “He did not believe in sending a text — birthday, Christmas — he called you,” Chambers said. “If he found out you were sick, he didn’t say, ‘What do you need?’ He came to your house and brought you what he thought you needed.”
Ottavio Taddei, Dean’s roommate, also said that Dean was always trying to help others. Taddei said that while Dean “enjoyed a couple of drinks every now and then,” he did not know him to use drugs.
“I’ve personally never seen him using drugs and never seen him in the apparent state of alteration caused by any form of drug,” Taddei said Thursday. “I consider this whole tragedy extremely controversial and I do hope the police department will dig into it.”
Buck has been prominent in politics since the 1980s, when he first got involved in Arizona as a Republican. In the late ‘80s, he led the Mecham Recall Committee, a movement to oust Gov. Evan Mecham, a Republican, who was later impeached over fraud and perjury allegations.
Buck later switched parties, and gave about $1,500 to support Barack Obama and $2,950 to back Hillary Clinton, according to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign fundraising. Buck is also prominent in LGBT political circles and ran unsuccessfully for the West Hollywood City Council about a decade ago.
After the news of Dean’s death, politicians who have received donations from Buck faced pressure to return the money.
Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., announced that he would donate more than $18,000 in campaign contributions he received from Buck to LGBT and African-American civil rights organizations, the Los Angeles Times reported.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.