One of the three men charged with supplying Mac Miller with fentanyl-laced pills, which led to the rapper’s death from an accidental overdose in 2018, has been sentenced to ten years and eleven months in prison.
According to Rolling Stone, Ryan Michael Reavis had asked to only serve five years, though federal prosecutors initially sought 12 years and seven months for Reavis. Judge Otis D. Wright II is said to have decided on a longer prison sentence after prosecutors read an emotional statement from the musician’s mother, Karen Meyers.
“My life went dark the moment Malcolm left his world. Malcolm was my person, more than a son. We had a bond and kinship that was deep and special and irreplaceable. We spoke nearly every day about everything – his life, plans, music, dreams,” Meyers said in the statement.
Reavis noted in court that, as the middle man, he did not know the counterfeit oxycodone pills that he gave Miller’s drug dealer were laced with fentanyl.
“This is not just a regular drug case. Somebody died, and a family is never going to get their son back. My family would be wrecked if it was me. They’d never be all right, never truly get over it. I think about that all the time,” said Reavis in court. “And I know that whatever happens today, I’m the lucky one because my family is here and I’m here and I’ll be with them again. I feel terrible. This is not who I am. My perspective has changed. My heart has changed.”
The judge’s decision also was reached after Assistant U.S. Attorney Elia Herrera showed proof that in June 2019, Reavis sent a text that showed he was still selling pills, while knowing that counterfeit oxycodone pills laced with fentanyl were an issue.
Herrera said, “Defendant knew that people were dying from fake blues left and right. He knew that people were being put away in prison for life for dealing them. Defendant was not worried about people dying left and right. He was worried about getting caught.”
This news comes months after Stephen Andrew Walter, one of the three-drug dealers involved in Miller’s death, entered a plea deal in exchange with dropping the second charge of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. Walter still faces up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty.