Two men charged with distributing the drugs that caused Mac Miller’s fatal overdose pleaded guilty in separate hearings in Los Angeles.
Stephen Andrew Walter, 48, and Ryan Michael Reavis, 38, pleaded guilty on Tuesday in video conferences to one felony count of distributing fentanyl.
Before entering his plea on Tuesday morning, Walter told federal Judge Otis D. Wright he never met Miller and didn’t know what happened to the drugs that he gave Ryan Michael Reavis to sell.
“I was charged with selling blue pills, little blue counterfeit oxycontin pills … and I didn’t know what was in them,” Walter said to the judge. “I didn’t know, like, fentanyl was in it. But I do say, yes, that I aided and abetted the transaction.”
Mac Miller was given the pills two days before the singer’s fatal drug overdose on Sept. 7, 2018 at his home in Studio City, Calif., according to court papers.
According to the indictment, Cameron James Pettit agreed to sell Miller 10 “blues” — the street name for Oxycodone pills — as well as cocaine and Xanax on the night of Sept. 4, 2018.
Pettit allegedly handed Miller, whose real name is Malcolm James McCormick, the counterfeit oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl, a powerful painkiller which is 50 times more potent than heroin.
During Tuesday’s hearing, prosecutors said Walter knew the pills he gave to Reavis contained fentanyl.
“I never met [Miller] before,” Walter said. “I only talked to Cameron. I didn’t know what his intentions were with the pills. After he saw Ryan Reavis, I didn’t know what he was going to do with them.”
Reavis stayed mostly quiet during his hearing on Tuesday afternoon, but answered, “Yes, thank you,” when the judge asked if he was voluntarily changing his not guilty plea.
Walter’s sentencing is scheduled for March 7, 2022, while Reavis will be back in court on April 4, 2022. Both men face a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, a lifetime of supervised release, a $1 million fine and other court fees.