Man who sold fatal drugs to Michael K. Williams sentenced

A 40-year-old Puerto Rican man accused of selling a fatal dose of heroin laced with fentanyl and a fentanyl analogue to actor Michael K. Williams’ has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced, per CNN.

Besides his prison term, authorities also said Irvin Cartagena was sentenced to five years of supervised release. “Michael K. Williams tragically lost his life after using the drugs sold to him by Cartagena. Although their product had already claimed one life, Cartagena and his co-conspirators continued to sell potentially lethal fentanyl-laced heroin,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in a statement.

“This office will tenaciously continue our enforcement efforts against unscrupulous drug dealers who distribute poison and exacerbate the scourge of the fentanyl epidemic,” Williams added.

Cartagena, whose nickname is “Green Eyes”, is part of three other men accused of being members of a drug trafficking group that sold the fatal drug to Williams. He was convicted after entering a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl, heroin and other drugs.

Authorities accused Cartagena of executing “the hand-to-hand transaction” of the drug that caused Williams’ accidental overdose. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that though the men got to know about Williams’ passing after purchasing the deadly drug, they “continued to sell fentanyl-laced heroin, in broad daylight, amidst residential apartment buildings, in Brooklyn and Manhattan.”

The statement also said the convicted man subsequently fled to Puerto Rico in the wake of Willams’ death. He was later arrested in February last year. 

As previously reported by Face2Face Africa, Williams was found dead in his New York City apartment in September 2021. The actor was famous for his role in the pioneering HBO series “The Wire”, and played the character Omar Little.