Cameron James Pettit is accused of supplying the rapper, who died last fall, with counterfeit oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl.
A man has been arrested on a charge of providing counterfeit drugs to Mac Miller days before the rapper died of an overdose at age 26.
Cameron James Pettit, 28, was arrested Wednesday morning by special agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration and officers with the Los Angeles Police Department, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced in a press release. Pettit is being charged with one count of distribution of a controlled substance and is expected to appear in United States District Court in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday.
According to the affidavit in the criminal complaint, Pettit and others distributed narcotics to Miller -- real name: Malcolm James McCormick -- approximately two days before he died of a drug overdose in his Studio City, California, home on Sept. 7, 2018. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner later determined that Miller died of mixed drug toxicity involving fentanyl, cocaine and alcohol.
Based on communications detailed in the affidavit, Pettit allegedly agreed to supply Miller with 30-milligram oxycodone pills, as well as cocaine and Xanax. However, in the early morning hours of Sept. 5, Pettit allegedly sold McCormick counterfeit oxycodone pills that contained fentanyl -- a "powerful synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin."
According to the affidavit, investigators believe that Miller died after snorting the counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl, which had allegedly been provided by Pettit. While another individual allegedly also supplied McCormick with other drugs prior to his death, according to the affidavit, those narcotics drugs did not contain fentanyl.
“Fentanyl disguised as a genuine pharmaceutical is a killer -- which is being proven every day in America,” United States Attorney Nick Hanna said in the release. “Drugs laced with cheap and potent fentanyl are increasingly common, and we owe it to the victims and their families to aggressively target the drug dealers that cause these overdose deaths.”
If convicted of the drug trafficking charge alleged in the complaint, Pettit will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison. The affidavit states that hours after news outlets reported Miller's death, Pettit sent a message to a friend saying, “Most likely I will die in jail.”
In the year since his death, Miller's family, friends and fans have continued to pay tribute to the late rapper, who was posthumously nominated for his first GRAMMY earlier this year for his 2018 album, Swimming. In June, the rapper's ex, singer Ariana Grande, was visibly emotional while performing songs about Miller during her concert in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
See more on Miller's life and death in the video below.
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