A year and a half after Michael K. Williams’ death, the man who sold The Wire star the drugs that killed him has plead guilty.
“Irvin Cartagena sold fentanyl-laced heroin in broad daylight in New York City, feeding addiction and causing tragedy,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York today. “In doing so, he dealt the fatal dose that killed Michael K. Williams,” he added of the September 5, 2021 transaction in Brooklyn’s South Williamsburg neighborhood. “This Office and our law enforcement partners will continue to hold accountable the dealers who push this poison, exploit addiction, and cause senseless death in our community.”
In front U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams earlier Wednesday, Cartagena plead guilty to “one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute fentanyl analogue, fentanyl, and heroin.” That plea specifically cited the death of Williams as a consequence of Cartagena’s drug slinging. Set to be sentenced later this year, Cartagena a.k.a. “Green Eyes” faces a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 40 years on the charges.
On the acclaimed HBO drama Lovecraft County at the time, Williams’ body was discovered in his NYC apartment that September day 2021. On September 24 that year, the NYC Office of Chief Medical Examiner made public its determination that the multi-Emmy nominated actor died from an “acute intoxication by the combined effects of fentanyl, p-fluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine” a.k.a. an accidental overdose.
Cartagena, Hector Robles, Luis Cruz, and Carlos Macci were arrested by the FBI and the NYPD in February 2022 in relation to Williams’ death. Cartagena was picked up in Puerto Rico, while the other three were snagged in NYC.
Aided by security camera footage and informants, law enforcement were able to show the so-called DTO crew selling Williams the drugs. The intel was also able to show that the quartet continued to sell their toxic wares in the gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood after learning of Williams’s demise.
No stranger to the allure and dangers of addiction and life’s other hardships, 54-year Williams had long been outspoken about his struggles to stay clean and sober over the years.
For many, Williams leapt to fame as the drug dealer rubbering Omar on HBO’s The Wire, for which he was praised by presidents and received a NAACP Image Award. Beloved among his peers, the actor followed The Wire with high profile roles such as mobster Chalky White with HBO’s Boardwalk Empire, for which he and the cast won an Outstanding Ensemble in a Drama Series SAG Award in 2011
Williams was also Emmy-nominated for HBO’s Bessie, The Night Of , VICE, and Lovecraft County, as well as the Ava DuVernay directed Netflix series When They See Us. The actor and Black Market host won the 2021 Critics Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor for the Misha Green created Lovecraft. Additionally, behind the camera, Williams received an Emmy nomination for producing Raised in the System, a docuseries he also starred in about the American mass incarceration of juveniles. His many big screen credits include The Road, Snitch, The Gambler, The Land, The Purge: Anarchy, Assassin’s Creed, The Public and Motherless Brooklyn.
