The Arizona drug dealer who supplied rapper Mac Miller with a lethal dose of counterfeit oxycodone laced with fentanyl has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison.
In a federal court on Monday, Ryan Michael Reavis said he was the middle man who was unaware that the counterfeit oxycodone pills he provided for another dealer – one of two others that were charged — was laced with fentanyl.
After a heartbreaking statement from Miller’s mother, Karen Meyers, U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II handed Reavis a sentence of 10 years and 11 months, as well as three years of supervised release with drug testing.
“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,” Meyer said in her statement.
She went on to speak of her son’s “infectious and bright” laugh and their “unparalleled” love for each other. “He would never knowingly take a pill with fentanyl, ever. He wanted to live and was excited about the future. The hole in my heart will always be there,” she said.
Reavis agreed to a plea deal in the case in November. Before his sentencing, he told the court he was a changed man.
“This is not just a regular drug case,” he said. “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. 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 26-year-old Miller, whose real name is Malcolm James McCormick, was found dead at his home in the San Fernando Valley on Sept. 7, 2018. The coroner said Miller died from “mixed drug toxicity,” with cocaine, ethanol and fentanyl — the potent opioid that also played a role in the deaths of musicians Prince and Tom Petty in recent years — was found in the Pittsburgh native’s system.
Miller had struggled with substance abuse in the past, and told Rolling Stone in August of that year that he was putting all that behind him. “If a bunch of people think I am a huge drug addict, OK. Cool. What can I really do? Go talk to all those people and be like ‘Naw man, it’s really not that simple? Have I done drugs? Yeah. But am I a drug addict? No.”