Stephen Walter sentenced this week
By Sam Catanzaro
A Westwood man will serve nearly two decades in prison for supplying the fentanyl-laced pills that led to rapper Mac Miller’s 2018 accidental fatal drug overdose.
A federal judge sentenced Stephen Walter on Monday to 17.5 years in prison.
Walter, 49, last October pleaded guilty to a federal criminal charge of distribution of fentanyl, having reached a deal with prosecutors to serve exactly 17 years.
But Judge Otis D. Wright II rejected that sentence this week because it was below the federal minimum of 20 years. In addition, prosecutors said he continued to sell opiates until his 2019 arrest.
“I may as well lay it out, OK,” Wright reportedly said in the courtroom, as quoted by Rolling Stone. “When you continue to engage in this activity even after your activities killed someone, I’m having a tough time not staying within the guidelines.”
Walter agreed to the higher sentence after conferring with his lawyer for a few minutes
“My actions caused a lot of pain, and for that I’m truly remorseful,” Walter said, as quoted by Rolling Stone. “I’m not that type of person who wants to hurt anybody. That’s not me. But on the paperwork where it says that I continued to conduct in that kind of behavior after I knew that there was death, that’s not the truth, your honor.”
Walter is one of three individuals charged in connection with Miller’s fatal overdose, along with Ryan Michael Reavis and Cameron James Pettit.
