‘The Wire’ Creator Wants Leniency for Drug Dealer in Michael K. Williams' Death
David Simon, the creator of the legendary HBO show The Wire, is calling for leniency for the drug dealer who sold actor Michael K. Williams fentanyl.
According to the New York Times, in a three-page letter written by Simon to Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams, he pressed them to consider a leniency for 71-year-old Carlos Macci, noting that Williams “bears the fuller responsibility” for his tragic death.
“What happened to Mike is a grievous tragedy,” Simon wrote of the actor. “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.”
Michael K. Williams Death: Dealer Pleads Guilty To Selling Fatal Fentanyl-Laced Heroin Dose
Macci is one of four people suspected of selling Williams drugs hand to hand a day before his passing. He is “largely illiterate” and sells drugs because he is “caught up in the diaspora of addiction himself,” Simon writes in the letter.
Simon also cites Williams’ own long-standing opposition to mass incarceration, concluding that “no possible good can come from incarcerating a 71-year-old soul.”
The actor died from a fentanyl-laced heroin overdose at his Brooklyn penthouse on September 6, 2021.
According to Williams’ nephew, Arvance Williams, his body was discovered by another nephew named Donovan. Law enforcement sources discovered drug paraphernalia at Williams’ apartment where his body was found, which is why it was believed he died from a possible overdose.
The Brooklyn native was famous for his roles as Omar Little in the Baltimore-based TV series The Wire, Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire and Montrose Freeman in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, which earned him his fifth Emmy nomination.
