Michael K Williams: Drug dealer in Wire actor overdose case jailed

A antheral charged successful the drug-related decease of Wire histrion Michael K Williams has been jailed for two-and-a-half years.

Prosecutors sought a four-year word for Carlos Macci but the actor's nephew and show's co-creator asked for leniency.

Macci, 72, 1 of 4 men charged with selling Williams heroin laced with fentanyl, pleaded blameworthy to conspiracy to administer narcotics successful April.

Williams, who starred arsenic robber Omar Little successful the HBO transgression drama, died of an overdose aged 54 successful 2021.

The 3 different men person been charged with straight causing Williams' decease and look harsher sentences.

One of them, Irvin Cartagena, has pleaded blameworthy to conspiracy charges and volition beryllium sentenced successful August. Two others person pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors wrote successful tribunal papers that "for decades the suspect has been selling deadly narcotics: heroin and present heroin laced with fentanyl".

Sentencing justice Ronnie Abrams told Macci that selling the drugs "not lone outgo Mr Williams his life, but it's costing your freedom", the Associated Press quality bureau reported.

But it is thought that Macci whitethorn person avoided a tougher condemnation successful portion due to the fact that of a three-page missive filed earlier this month.

In it Wire co-creator David Simon asked for mercy for the suspect due to the fact that Williams "believed successful redemption".

"No imaginable bully tin travel from incarcerating a... soul, mostly illiterate, who has himself struggled with a beingness of addiction," the missive said.

Mr Simon added that Williams himself "would person fought" for Macci.

Williams' nephew Dominic Dupont besides told the justice helium thought Macci could crook his beingness around, adding that it "weighs dense connected me" to spot idiosyncratic successful that situation.

As overdose deaths successful the US proceed to rise, immoderate prosecutors person charged victims' friends who helped get specified drugs, arsenic good arsenic the dealers. Several states person passed laws successful caller years allowing prosecutors to complaint overdoses arsenic homicides successful an effort to discourage radical from selling oregon sharing fentanyl.

Williams, who talked openly astir his struggles with addiction, won captious acclaim for his relation successful The Wire, a bid that ran from 2002-08 and explored the narcotics country successful Baltimore from the position of instrumentality enforcement arsenic good arsenic cause dealers and users.

Prosecutors accidental that connected 5 September 2021, Macci and different members of a drug-trafficking organisation sold Williams heroin laced with fentanyl and continued to merchantability the substance adjacent aft they knew the histrion had suffered a fatal overdose.