One man pleads guilty to drug charge in connection with Mac Miller’s death
Stephen Walter has been charged with one count of distribution of fentanyl
Aux News Mac Miller
One of the three men arrested in connection with rapper Mac Miller’s death has pled guilty to the distribution of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, and now faces up to 20 years in prison.
The defendant, 46-year-old Stephen Andrew Walter, has entered a plea deal for his involvement in Miller’s accidental death. According to documents obtained by Insider, in exchange for his plea deal, the government will drop his second charge—conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.
Miller, whose birth name is Malcolm James McCormick, died of an accidental overdose on September 8, 2018 at the age of 26. The court alleges McCormick would have not died if not for the counterfeit opioid in his system, which was mixed with alcohol and cocaine.
Walter, along with two other men were indicted by the Central District of California in 2019. Walter’s counterparts—Cameron James Pettit and Ryan Michael Reavis—have pleaded not guilty. The trial is currently scheduled to begin on March 1, 2022. While Pettit was the individual who allegedly handed the pills directly to McCormick, Walter allegedly distributed the counterfeit pills with the intent to sell them as oxycodone.
The plea documents obtained by Pitchfork read:
“On or about the September 4, 2018, in Los Angeles, California, within the Central District of California, [Stephen Andrew Walter] knowingly and intentionally directed Ryan Michael Reavis to distribute fentanyl in the form of counterfeit oxycodone pills, to Cameron James Pettit. [Walter] knew that the pills that he directed Reavis to give to Pettit contained fentanyl or some other federally controlled substance, and at all relevant times intended for Reavis to distribute the pills to Pettit.
Later that evening, at [Walter]’s direction, Reavis delivered the pills to Pettit. Shortly thereafter, Pettit distributed these pill containing fentanyl to M.M. M.M. later ingested the fentanyl supplied by Pettit, which, in combination with cocaine and alcohol, caused M.M.’s death from a fatal overdose on or about September 7, 2018. M.M. would not have died from an overdose but for the fentanyl contained in the pills that M.M. had received from Pettit on September 4, 2018.”
Fentanyl’s use has become increasingly common both as a counterfeit for opioids (due to its cheaper price) or to lace other drugs such as cocaine, with or without users’ knowledge. The drug is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and highly addictive, overdosing is all too common. An amount comparable to a grain of rice is all that’s needed to overdose.
Last month, the death of The Wire actor Michael K. Williams was also linked to the use of fentanyl, and has since been determined an accidental overdose. In September, Logan Williams, the 17-year-old actor known for his role on The Flash, died of an accidental overdose connected with the use of fentanyl as well.
“It has become increasingly common for us to see drug dealers peddling counterfeit pharmaceuticals made with fentanyl. As a consequence, fentanyl is now the number one cause of overdose deaths in the United States,” United States Attorney Nick Hanna said at the time of the three men’s indictment.
“These defendants allegedly continued to sell narcotics after Mr. McCormick’s death with full knowledge of the risks their products posed to human life. We will continue to aggressively target drug dealers responsible for the spread of this dangerous chemical.”
For harm reduction, test strips are available for the detection of fentanyl. If you or someone you know is facing substance use disorders, we recommend reaching out to SAMHSA’s National Helpline 1-800-662-HELP (4357)
16 Comments
Good. Fuck that guy. Mac’s posthumous new album is basically the end of his downward spiral that he recorded, starting with Swimming and then Circles. You can hear the depression, and then the “fuck it” plunge into being a committed junkie. It’s so disheartening. Even though my partner thinks he’s “monotone af”, Mac was always a weird little bright spot in hip hop and Swimming might be one of the most sincere albums I’ve ever heard.
Well, I knew nothing about who this guy was and after reading the article I still have no idea who he was.
Thanks for the “news”, AVClub.
maybe the government should start supplying a safe control. also in a lot of cases, drug dealers can test their supply and still there are zero signs of fentanyl, yet there is still fentanyl. every overdose is a policy failure and the governments continued war on drugs.
Right, because drug dealers are known to be righteous, upstanding businesspeople who take the utmost care to only supply the purest product to their enthusiastic connoisseurs.
That’s why it’s necessary for the government to regulate the supply, so that people don’t have to rely on drug dealers.Also, “drug dealers” usually don’t want their customers to die. There are plenty of bad ones, but plenty of decent ones, whose only mistake is to sell drugs not approved of by the government. Liquor store owners and bartenders serve drugs that kill many, many more people than illicit “drug dealers.”
You know, that’s exactly what I was thinking when NPR was talking about fentanyl and how it tends to kill users so quickly. They had some cute catchphrase like “You’ll get addicted, but not for long.” It doesn’t sound like a sustainable business plan unless you really got an endless line up of idiots who want to try this stuff.
You know, that’s exactly what I was thinking when NPR was talking about fentanyl and how it tends to kill users so quickly. They had some cute catchphrase like “You’ll get addicted, but not for long.” It doesn’t sound like a sustainable business plan unless you really got an endless line up of idiots who want to try this stuff.
that’s not the point dude, and lots of people are coerced into dealing drugs because of a shitty system. it’s always easy to point at the dealers instead of the bigger picture, and accidental overdoses are soaring more and more.
I think it’s important to know that the reason there was fentanyl in the oxycodone (as it is in black market Percocet, Xanax, heroin, cocaine, MDMA, etc.) is primarily because prohibition makes it impossible to regulate the products people are using, most of whom aren’t addicted. Michael K. Williams didn’t “overdose.” He was poisoned by a contaminant because he wasn’t allowed to buy a drug that, when regulated into pure and precise doses, is significantly less dangerous than alcohol.
Cops, prosecutors, and politicians like to blame dealers and users for their deaths, ignoring their own roles in these utterly predictable tragedies.
I’m not sure I’m following. What is the drug that is less dangerous than alcohol? Oxycodone? Also, how are we measuring dangerous?
If used as prescribed, in low to moderate doses, even daily, Oxycodone doesn’t have the deleterious physical effects on the body that alcohol does. There is a risk for dependence, but dependence (distinct from addiction) on Oxycodone is also far less (almost not at all) physically harmful than dependence on alcohol. In fact, people who are dependent on alcohol are basically addicted, as the resulting physical damages would count as the negative consequences necessary for that diagnosis.(I probably should have phrased that more precisely in my original post.)
if you are dependent on Oxycodone you absolutely have physical problems even taking at the recommended doses thus the opioid crisis where people seek drugs on the black market. Will withdrawals kill you like alcohol? No. But don’t pretend that somehow taking a few pain killers a day for the rest of your life will lead to no physical issues, it absolutely will. The acetaminophen in oxy alone will cause massive liver damage if taken daily. The war on drugs is bad and not effective, but the cause for fentanyl flooding the market is due to drug companies afraid of getting sued and pulling back on pushing opioids for minor pain and cartels taking cheap drugs to fill the void it left. The black market for drugs is much much much different than it was even 10 years ago, the cartels wiped all of the old guard out and now cut everything with fentanyl cause its cheap and causes repeat customers. Coke, Meth and shit even dirt weed all has fentanyl in it these days, its a cheap cut that gets them results.
Interesting. Thank you for the reply and information.
Well if every dope dealer quit the business because one client died, the turnover would be ridiculous.
McCormick would have not died if not for the counterfeit opioid in his system, which was mixed with alcohol and cocaine. Yeah, Mac Miller holds no responsibility in this at all.
If only the US had an agency that dealt with regulating things like drugs and maybe food so consumers could have some more faith in what they were ingesting into their bodies.Though I know making things illegal makes them unobtainable (perhaps only without a script) so maybe this isn’t an issue now in 2021, 40 years after the war on drugs began.