The case surrounding the heartbreaking death of actor Michael K. Williams has reached its end. According to NBC News, on Tuesday, Carlos Macci, one of the men arrested on drug trafficking charges in connection with Williamsโ death was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He received โ30 months in prison, plus three years of supervised release, with the first year in an inpatient drug treatment facility.โ
Suggested Reading
โI would like to say, your honor, Iโm sorry for what has happened,โ the 72-year-old Macci said in court before the sentence was announced.
Williams, who was best known for his memorable portrayal of Omar on The Wire, died in September 2021 after overdosing on heroin laced with fentanyl. The day before his death, the actor bought the heroin from someone working with Macci. Prosecutors stated that Macci and the three other men sold the bad batch of drugs even after Williamsโ death became public knowledge.
โToday was a sad day. There are no winners here,โ Williamsโ nephew, Dominic Dupont, said outside the courtroom after the sentence.
Ahead of the sentencing, David Simon, creator of The Wire and a close friend of Williams, wrote a three-page letter asking the judge for leniency for Macci, noting that the actor would not want him to spend his final years in prison/
โNo 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,โ Simon wrote.
โMichael would look at Mr. Macci and hope against hope that this moment in which he finds himself might prove redemptive, that his remaining years might amount to something more, and that by the grace of love and leniency, something humane and worthy might be rescued from the tragedy,โ he continued.
U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams agreed that it wasnโt โin the interest of justice to give Macci a lengthy prison term,โ but she did comment on the danger of fentanyl and the fact that Macci and the others kept selling their drugs despite โknowing their product just killed a man.โ Abrams told Macci that his choices โnot only cost Mr. Williams his life, but itโs costing you your freedom.โ
Straight From
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.