The authorities in Manhattan announced on Wednesday the arrests of four men who they said sold a deadly dose of fentanyl-laced heroin to Michael K. Williams, the Brooklyn actor who was best known for his portrayal of a gay stickup man in the television series “The Wire.”
The men were part of a drug trafficking crew that operated in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and sold the deadly dose to Mr. Williams on Sept. 5 in a hand-to-hand transaction that was captured on surveillance video, the authorities said.
“This is a public health crisis,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “And it has to stop. Deadly opioids like fentanyl and heroin don’t care about who you are or what you’ve accomplished.”
Mr. Williams, 54, was found dead in his apartment on Sept. 6. The medical examiner ruled that the death was caused by “acute intoxication by the combined effects of fentanyl, p-fluorofentanyl, heroin and cocaine.”
Even though they knew that Mr. Williams died after buying the heroin, the same crew members continued to sell fentanyl-laced heroin in broad daylight amid residential apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan, according to a criminal complaint.
The charges against the four men stemmed from an investigation that began early last year into the trafficking group, the complaint said. The four defendants, all of Brooklyn, included Irvin Cartagena, 39; Hector Robles, 57; Luis Cruz, 56; and Carlos Macci, 70.
Mr. Williams was best known for his role as Omar Little, the shotgun-wielding robber of drug dealers on “The Wire,” the five-season epic that aired on HBO in the 2000s. The show, which explored the underworld of crime and drugs in Baltimore and its relationship with institutions like the police and school system, is widely viewed by critics as among the best in television history — and Mr. Williams’s character was perhaps the most beloved by audiences.
His depiction of Omar, an openly gay man in the ecosystem of murder and drugs, was seen as a groundbreaking and rare portrayal of Black masculinity on television at a time when police dramas often struck a different tone. Even beyond “The Wire,” he was known for the intimate and nuanced approaches he brought to his characters, which landed him five Emmy Award nominations over his career.
Before his death, Mr. Williams had also openly discussed his own personal challenges in navigating drug addiction.
Mr. Williams had been raised in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn, growing up in a working-class housing complex now known as Flatbush Gardens, where he drew inspiration for his acting. In the days after his death, communities across New York held memorials for his life, including in his former neighborhood. There, longtime residents said that even as he found success in Hollywood, he retained his down-to-earth spirit and regularly gave back to the community where he grew up.
“There are so many people here — beautiful and beautifully flawed people — and I want all of their stories to be told,” Mr. Williams said of the residents of the housing complex in an interview with The New York Times in 2017.