‘The Wire’ creator requests leniency for late Michael K. Williams’ drug dealer

One of the defendants charged with selling Michael K. Williams heroin laced with fentanyl, Carlos Macci, is being defended by David Simon, co-creator of the television series The Wire. 

Simon has sent a three-page letter to the judge in support of Macci, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute narcotics and is due to be sentenced this month. Williams, who died of an overdose at his Brooklyn penthouse on September 6, 2021, was 54 years old at the time of his death.

"No possible good can come from incarcerating a 71-year-old soul, largely illiterate, who has himself struggled with a lifetime of addiction and who has not engaged in street-level sales of narcotics with ambitions of success and profit but rather as someone caught up in the diaspora of addiction himself," Simon wrote, Manhattan court documents showed.

According to the former police reporter, if Michael K. Williams were still alive, he wouldn't solely hold Carlos Macci responsible for his death, despite Macci's 23 prior drug convictions.

David Simon collaborated closely with Williams during the production of the crime drama The Wire from 2002 to 2008. He wrote in his three-page letter that Williams had been open about his own struggles with drug addiction.

"I never failed to see him take responsibility for himself and his decisions," he added.

"It is this attitude — coupled with Michael's publicly stated opposition to mass incarceration and the drug war... that convinces me that he would want me to write this letter."