A sobbing Brooklyn drug dealer who helped sell “The Wire” star Michael K. Williams a fatal dose of fentanyl-laced heroin was sentenced Friday to five years in prison – as the actor’s nephew sounded the alarm on the national fentanyl scourge.
“We can’t walk forward like this in our country if we’re watching young babies die,” said Dominic Dupont, Williams’ nephew, at a hearing in Manhattan federal court that came a month after 1-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici’s tragic death from fentanyl poisoning at a Bronx day care that police say doubled as a drug den.
Both Dominic Dupont and his wife Staci spoke eloquently about the horrors of the fentanyl epidemic before Judge Ronnie Abrams sentenced 59-year-old Hector Robles – who has admitted being part of a four-person, Williamsburg-based crew that sold Williams the drugs that killed him – to serve five years in prison and undergo three years of post-release supervision.
Robles, who said Friday that he has battled a lifelong heroin addiction, was also ordered to receive drug treatment while behind bars.
“As someone who has suffered my entire life, I am aware I have done bad things – especially destroying many lives in the community, especially myself,” Robles told the court before the sentence was handed down.
“I didn’t know the drugs I was selling were affecting the families like it was affecting me,” added Robles, who cried throughout the speech and thanked Williams’ family members sitting in the gallery after he was done speaking.
Robles, who pleaded guilty to narcotics conspiracy in the case, continued selling drugs even after knowing that what he sold had killed Williams, federal prosecutors say.
Robles’s sentencing marks an end to the criminal cases stemming from the beloved actor’s fatal overdose in his Williamsburg penthouse on Sept. 5, 2021.
Another member of the Brooklyn drug-peddling crew, 58-year-old Luis Cruz, was also sentenced to five years in prison earlier this month.
Irvin Cartagena, 40, received a heavier penalty of 10 years behind bars for being the one who physically handed the drugs to Williams in front of an apartment building on South 3rd Street near Havemeyer Street.
Carlos Macci, 71, was given the most lenient sentence in the case in July, when the same judge sentenced him to two-and-a-half years.
Williams, a Brooklyn native, shot to fame for his portrayal of “Omar Little” on the beloved HBO series “The Wire.” His character was a shotgun-toting outlaw who wreaked havoc on the Baltimore drug trade by robbing street-level dealers and suppliers.
He also had memorable roles on the HBO shows “The Night Of” and “Boardwalk Empire.”
Williams was candid about his own struggles with drug abuse and said he had entered therapy after wrapping filming on the Emmy-nominated HBO series, “Lovecraft Country.”