Michael K. Williams’s friends want mercy for men who pleaded guilty in actor's overdose death

Prosecutors are seeking long prison sentences for each of the four men who have pleaded guilty to charges related to the overdose death of actor Michael K. Williams. But as the first of the defendants awaits sentencing Tuesday, some people close to Williams say the actor would have wanted the judge to show mercy.

“I know Mike to be anti-incarceration and pro-rehabilitation,” said Darryl Phillips, a friend of Williams’ who works to educate people about harm reduction strategies to prevent overdoses.

“I can’t imagine that Mike would want anyone, or them specifically, to be incarcerated for a long time, if incarcerated at all,” he said.

Williams was found unresponsive in his Brooklyn apartment in September 2021 after buying drugs that turned out to be laced with fentanyl on the street in Williamsburg, according to court papers.

In April, four men pleaded guilty in federal court for conspiring to sell the narcotics that killed Williams. Each is due in court in the coming weeks for sentencing hearings. The first one of those sentencing dates, for Carlos Macci, is Tuesday.

The case follows a growing strategy among prosecutors across the country to seek harsh sentences for people who distribute deadly drugs, especially fentanyl, as opioid overdoses continue to climb. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York did not respond to multiple requests for comment but has pledged in court filings and press releases to hold the dealers accountable for selling harmful drugs that prosecutors say put the community in danger.

But some experts argue that imposing harsh prison sentences on people who sell or share drugs — some of whom are addicted to drugs themselves — bucks decades of research that has questioned the effectiveness of heavy penalties for drug crimes and uncovered stark racial disparities in its enforcement. Several of Williams’ loved ones, including friends and former creative collaborators, also say they don’t want justice for his death to come in the form of lengthy prison terms.

Williams is perhaps best known for playing Omar Little, the whistling, Robin Hood-esque anti-hero on the TV series “The Wire” who stole from drug dealers to survive on the streets of West Baltimore. His renowned career also included roles in “Boardwalk Empire,” “Lovecraft Country” and “12 Years a Slave,” as well as a documentary series he hosted on VICE called “Black Market.”

Raised in the Vanderveer Estates public housing complex in East Flatbush, the Brooklyn native interrogated the flaws of the criminal justice system in many of his acting roles and advocated for reform in his personal life. He also spoke publicly about his addiction. In 2018, Williams told The Takeaway about his struggles with “drugs and partying.”

“I was at risk,” he said. “I look back at mistakes, the bad choices I made in my life. It came from a lack of self-awareness and way too much access to nonsense.”

Williams also co-founded We Build the Block, a nonprofit to support vulnerable young people in Brooklyn, and served as the ACLU’s ambassador for ending mass incarceration. In an essay he wrote for the ACLU in 2015, Williams said: “America is addicted to mass incarceration, and it’s making our society sick.”

“We have spent 40 years stuffing our prisons, mostly with [B]lack and brown men, and for what? This isn’t who we are,” he wrote. “America, we can do better. We have to, for all people.”

Friends plead for leniency

Now, four men are facing the possibility of years — or even decades — behind bars for their role in Williams’ death.

Irvin Cartagena, who prosecutors say sold Williams the fentanyl-laced heroin that killed him, faces a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 40 years in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Hector Robles, Luis Cruz and Carlos Macci are also awaiting sentencing.

Macci, 71, is illiterate and has spent much of his own life addicted to drugs, his defense attorney said in a sentencing memorandum.

“The Wire” creator David Simon has asked a judge for leniency in Macci’s case. Simon said the late actor would have thought “no possible good” could come from incarcerating Macci.

“He believed in redemption,” Simon wrote in a letter last month to Judge Ronnie Abrams. “He fought hard for his own and for everyone in Baltimore, Brooklyn, and everywhere else he encountered. He would fight for Mr. Macci.”

Dana Rachlin, who co-founded We Build the Block with Williams, said her friend would have wanted mercy for all four men — not just for the 71-year-old with the most obvious case for sympathy.

“When you are very serious about criminal justice reform and you are about this work, you don’t get to pick and choose when to be about it,” she said. “This is a test for everybody.”

Rachlin remembers getting text messages congratulating her when the dealers were arrested. She said the texts made her sad. In a letter, she asked the judge to impose the “most restorative possible sentence” for the men.

“I just want to talk to them, to be honest,” Rachlin told Gothamist. “I also want to figure out how to turn this horrible thing that has happened into something positive, and I want us to have complex conversations about what accountability looks like.”

She said real accountability — the kind that addresses the underlying causes of crime — doesn’t come from a prison sentence.

“Making an arrest and throwing somebody in prison is the easiest thing to do,” she said. “To really address crime and public safety and all this, it’s hard work.”

‘Fentanyl has really set us back’

In a legal submission filed ahead of Macci’s sentencing, prosecutors asked the judge to send him to prison for at least four years, noting that he and the other men have continued to sell deadly drugs for years, even after Williams’ death.

“The need for deterrence and the need to protect the community are the paramount concerns calling for a substantial sentence for this defendant,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Drug offenses accounted for the largest share of federal crimes in fiscal year 2022, making up 31.5% of all reported cases, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Almost 98% of drug trafficking cases ended with a plea deal last year, and the average prison sentence was 78 months, or six-and-a-half years, the commission reported.

But Maritza Perez Medina with the Drug Policy Alliance said the recent fentanyl crisis has led many lawmakers and prosecutors to lean more on tough-on-crime approaches to drug enforcement, like mandatory minimum sentences, which aren’t always rooted in what the research says about the most effective ways to treat addiction.

“I think before fentanyl was part of the illicit drug supply the way that it is now, there were efforts at the federal level to do away with mandatory minimums for drug cases,” she said. “Unfortunately, fentanyl has really set us back.”

Perez Medina said sending distributors to prison can actually make the drug supply more dangerous, because users will have to turn to a less-trusted source.

“That’s when we see them getting exposed to substances they may not be used to,” she said. “And that can trigger an overdose."

Williams' family has not spoken publicly about its wishes for the upcoming sentencing hearings and one family member declined an interview request.

Chad Arrington, a Baltimore rapper who was charged with wire fraud and met Williams while filming an episode of “Black Market,” said the actor helped him to mentally prepare for the 16 months he spent in federal prison and continued to support him while he was incarcerated.

Arrington said his mentor didn’t condone crime. He thinks Williams would have wanted the men to take responsibility for their actions.

“They have to look in the mirror each and every day and know exactly what they did to Michael K. Williams,” he said. “And not just to him, other people in their community.”

But Arrington said prison can “break you.” He’s asking the judge to choose a sentence that prioritizes rehabilitation.

“More than anything,” he said, “please allow these guys to get the help that they need on the inside.”