A drug dealer was sentenced on Tuesday (July 25) to 30 months in prison in connection with the overdose death of actor Michael K. Williams.
Williams, who starred as Omar Little in the HBO crime drama The Wire, died of a fentanyl overdose at age 54 in 2021.
Carlos Macci, 72, one of four men charged with selling Williams heroin laced with fentanyl, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute narcotics in April.
Macci and the three other defendants continued to sell the batch of fentanyl-laced heroin even after Williams’ fatal overdose made headlines, prosecutors said.
The exchange was caught on surveillance video and described by New York federal prosecutors in court filings.
“I would like to say, your honor, I’m sorry for what has happened,” Macci said in the New York City courthouse before the verdict was announced.
Dominic Dupont, Williams’ nephew, said outside the courtroom afterward: “Today was a sad day. There are no winners here.”
“We lost an amazing human being,” he added.
David Simon, co-creator of The Wire, wrote a three-page letter to the judge seeking mercy for Macci.
“No possible good can come from incarcerating a (72-year-old) soul, largely illiterate, who has himself struggled with a lifetime of addiction and who has not engaged in street-level sales of narcotics with ambitions of success and profit but rather as someone caught up in the diaspora of addiction himself,” Simon wrote.
Williams was laid to rest during a heartfelt service held at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Cathedral in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which also streamed on Facebook for fans of the actor to share in the emotional, private proceedings.