The Wire Creator Asks Leniency For Man Charged In Michael K. Williams' Death
The Wire creator David Simon has used his famously effective words to ask for leniency in the sentencing of one of the men charged in connection with actor Michael K. Williams' fatal overdose.
Williams, who played Omar Little on The Wire, was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment on Sept. 6, 2021. He was 54.
New York City's medical examiner determined that Williams' death was an accidental overdose — specifically, an "acute intoxication by the combined effects of fentanyl, p-fluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine." (Williams had spoken in the past about his battle with addiction, which began at age 19.)
On Feb. 2, 2022, the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said that an investigation into a drug-trafficking organization led to surveillance-video footage of Williams purchasing the drugs. Four defendants named in the criminal complaint — Irvin Cartagena, age 40; Hector Robles, 58; Carlos Macci, 71; and Luiz Cruz, 57, all of Brooklyn — continued to sell their product even after becoming aware that Williams died after taking it.
The four men all pleaded guilty, and with Macci's sentencing scheduled for later this month, his lawyer, Benjamin Zeman, asked Simon to write on his client's behalf because "he's been such a thoughtful and eloquent voice about what the failure of the war on drugs has wrought," the New York Times reports.
"What happened to Mike is a grievous tragedy," Simon wrote in a three-page letter to the judge. "But I know that Michael would look upon the undone and desolate life of Mr. Macci and know two things with certainty: First, that it was Michael who bears the fuller responsibility for what happened." And secondly, "No possible good can come from incarcerating a 71-year-old soul, largely illiterate, who has himself struggled with a lifetime of addiction" and who sold drugs not for profit "but rather as someone caught up in the diaspora of addiction himself."
Zeman is asking that Macci, who is facing a possible 10-year sentence, instead receive a sentence of "time served" (or one-and-a-half years).