An aged drug supplier was sentenced Tuesday to 2½ years in jail in reference to the overdose dying of actor Michael Okay. Williams.
Carlos Macci, who’s 72, was amongst 4 males arrested on drug trafficking costs tied to the dying of Williams, who was greatest identified for his function as the scary stickup man Omar Little in HBO’s “The Wire.”
Macci was sentenced to 30 months in jail, plus three years of supervised launch, with the primary yr in an inpatient drug remedy facility.
“I wish to say, your honor, I am sorry for what has occurred,” Macci mentioned within the New York Metropolis courthouse earlier than the decision was introduced.
He had shuffled into the Manhattan courtroom together with his arms cuffed and his again barely hunched over. Macci, who is usually bald and has a gray beard, stored his eyes skilled on U.S. District Decide Ronnie Abrams as she rendered his sentence.
Dominic Dupont, Williams’ nephew, mentioned outdoors the courtroom afterward: “Right this moment was a tragic day. There aren’t any winners right here.”
“We misplaced an incredible human being,” he added.
Williams, 54, died in September 2021 after having consumed heroin laced with fentanyl, which he purchased yesterday from a member of Macci’s crew in Brooklyn. The alternate was caught on surveillance video and described by New York federal prosecutors in court docket filings.
Macci and the three different defendants continued to promote the batch of fentanyl-laced heroin even after Williams’ deadly overdose made headlines, prosecutors mentioned.
Macci pleaded responsible in April to possessing and distributing narcotics.
Macci’s lawyer, Benjamin Zeman, requested a sentence of time served, citing his superior age and his hardscrabble background. He dropped out of college within the second grade and by no means realized to learn and write, and he has struggled with drug dependancy for many of his life, Zeman mentioned in court docket filings.
“Mr. Macci was on that block” for “the very same purpose” Williams was there, Zeman advised the choose. “He was there to get medication.”
“A further time period of incarceration will not assist Mr. Macci or Mr. Williams, and positively will not stop the subsequent overdose,” he added.
In court docket filings, New York federal prosecutors requested the choose to condemn Macci to at the least 4 years.
Micah Fergenson, a prosecutor with the U.S. legal professional’s workplace for Southern New York, famous in court docket that Macci has greater than 20 prior convictions, most of them for drug offenses, and that the final 4 all resulted in sentences of time served.
“That they had completely no deterrent impact,” Fergenson mentioned.
Fergenson added that, by Macci’s lawyer’s personal account, his well being has improved since he was positioned in jail.
“It is the weird case the place a lengthier time period of incarceration” might “profit the defendant,” Fergenson mentioned.
David Simon, a co-creator of “The Wire,” wrote a three-page letter to the choose looking for mercy for Macci. Simon had a detailed relationship with Williams, who was open about his struggles with dependancy.
“No potential good can come from incarcerating a (72-year-old) soul, largely illiterate, who has himself struggled with a lifetime of dependancy and who has not engaged in street-level gross sales of narcotics with ambitions of success and revenue however fairly as somebody caught up within the diaspora of dependancy himself,” Simon wrote.
“Michael would have a look at Mr. Macci and hope towards hope that this second through which he finds himself may show redemptive, that his remaining years may quantity to one thing extra, and that by the grace of affection and leniency, one thing humane and worthy is perhaps rescued from the tragedy.”
Earlier than the choose introduced Macci’s sentence, Williams’ nephew addressed the court docket.
Dupont choked up as he recounted delivering the information to Williams’ mom that her son was useless. He went on to say that he felt for Macci and his battle with dependancy.
“I am actually hopeful that this can be a chance for individuals to see and perceive the impacts their selections may have on individuals,” he mentioned.
In saying the sentence, Abrams mentioned she did not assume it was within the curiosity of justice to offer Macci a prolonged jail time period given his age. She additionally acknowledged his troublesome upbringing and lengthy historical past of drug abuse.
However she famous the extraordinary toll fentanyl has taken within the U.S. and mentioned Macci and his crew continued to promote the drug “figuring out their product simply killed a person.”
Promoting medication, she mentioned whereas trying immediately at Macci, “not solely value Mr. Williams his life, but it surely’s costing you your freedom.”
