On September 4, days shy of the one-year anniversary of Mac Miller’s death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Central District of California charged 28-year-old Cameron Pettit with selling the drugs that killed the rapper.
Pettit, who was denied bail by U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Audero per the feds’ request, faces up to 20 years in prison.
Despite the eerie timing, the case “was not timed to coincide with the anniversary of [Mac’s] death,” spokesperson U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson Thomas Mrozek told Complex.
The government released a 42-page criminal complaint against Pettit that goes into the details surrounding the night Mac bought the drugs that killed him. Here’s a breakdown of what those documents reveal, and a summary of the case against Cameron Pettit.
Who is Cameron Pettit?
Cameron James Pettit is a 28-year-old executive chef at the Sayers Club in Hollywood, according to his Facebook page. He is also, the government says, a drug dealer, and one of his clients was Mac Miller.
What is Cameron Pettit being charged with?
Pettit is charged with Distribution of a Controlled Substance, a count which carries a 20-year maximum prison sentence. Specifically, the government says that on September 5, 2018, Pettit sold Mac oxycodone pills that, instead of being genuine Oxy, were instead laced with fentanyl.
Pettit is not directly charged with killing Mac; the government points out that the rapper “died of mixed drug toxicity involving fentanyl, cocaine and alcohol.” But the DOJ’s press release goes out of its way to point out that Mac “died after snorting the counterfeit oxycodone pills containing fentanyl and...those pills had been provided by Pettit.”
When asked if they planned on charging Pettit with additional crimes, Mrozek had no comment.
Why does the government think he did it?
The criminal complaint lays out a lot of evidence to back up the contention that Pettit sold Mac the fentanyl-laced Oxy: texts between Pettit and Mac, the drugs themselves, panicked Instagram DMs between Pettit and a friend after Mac’s death became public, and more.
Was anyone else charged?
No one else was charged, but two women are mentioned in the complaint, Mia Johansson and Karla Amador. According to the complaint, Johansson served a dual role. She acted as a backup drug dealer when Pettit was tied up, and sometimes took payments from Mac on behalf of Pettit. She also set Mac up with sex workers, including one, Karla Amador, who was with Mac the night he bought the drugs that would kill him. Amador, the government says, also goes by “Carolina Cortez,” and under that name has starred in adult films.
When asked by Complex if any additional people, including Johansson and Amador, would be charged in the case, Mrozek again had no comment.
You can see Johnansson and Pettit in the Instagram photo below, which is dated April 4, 2017. Johansson is the woman with brown hair.
What happened on September 5?
Much of the criminal complaint is devoted to reconstructing the events of the night of September 4, into the early morning of September 5, 2018. Here is the outline of what the government contends went down:
Between a little after 11 p.m. and just before midnight, Mac and Pettit engage in a long text conversation. Over text, Mac orders ten Oxy pills, ten Xanax pills, and cocaine, before telling Pettit to deliver everything to Conway Recording Studios in L.A.
By 1 a.m., Pettit hasn’t shown up, so Mac sends him a series of texts asking where he is. There is no response.
At 1:12 a.m., Mac starts texting Johansson about how “Cam is supposed to be pullin up and he ain’t answering.” Johansson offers instead to send some drugs “with a girl.” Mac orders five Oxy pills, five Xanax, ten Adderall, five Norco pills, and two grams of coke. He asks which girls are “available,” and Johansson says that “Carla,” who the government contends is Karla Amador, is.
Just after 2 a.m., Pettit finally gets back to Mac, apologizing for getting “sidetracked.” He arrives and delivers the drugs to Mac a little before 2:30 a.m.. It’s a little unclear when Amador arrived that morning, but by 2:30 a.m., Mac is texting Johansson and buying an extra hour with “Carla.”
Later on the 5th, Johnansson sends Mac a series of text messages about the money he owes her for the night’s festivities: $325 for the drugs and $3,000 for five hours of Amador’s time (Mac admits that “I just wanted an extra hour but I never told her to leave… All the sudden in was 7 am [sic]. I was just working and she was kickin it.”)
How do they know Pettit sold the drugs that killed Mac?
Mac was found dead on September 7. Later that day, law enforcement searched his house and found a plastic bag inside a coat in a bathroom closet. In it, they found all of the pills Mac ordered from Pettit and Johansson, except for a few they presumed he had taken. Some of the Oxy in the bag was counterfeit and tested positive for fentanyl, while some was legitimate and didn’t.
How do they know which drugs Pettit sold, and which came from Johansson?
Pettit described his Oxy as “30s”—that is, generic 30 milligram Oxycodone pills. The counterfeit Oxy that Pettit allegedly sold were made to look like 30 milligram pills produced by Qualitest.
Johansson, however, offered to sell Mac “5 oxy,” and sent him a picture of what the pills looked like. Five pills that matched that description were found in the bag. Those were the actual, non-counterfeit Oxycodone. Only six of the 10 Oxy that Pettit sold to Mac were found.
To make the situation even more damning, the feds found the remnants of a crushed-up counterfeit Oxy, a rolled up piece of paper, and a credit card-style gift card in an open safe at Mac’s house. Those combine to suggest, the complaint says, that Mac “crushed and snorted one or more of the Counterfeit Oxycodone Pills Containing Fentanyl before his death.”
How did Pettit react when Mac died?
Pettit panicked when news of Mac’s death started to spread on September 7. The complaint has an Instagram DM exchange between Pettit and a friend identified only as “P.R.” Pettit says, “Most likely I will die in jail.” Then “P.R.” tries to calm him down, saying, “You’re just paranoid” and, “It’s not your fault.” Pettit responds that he’s ready to “get off the grid” and “[m]ove to another country.” P.R. asks, “Like do you honestly think it’s that serious?”
What happens now?
Pettit was denied bail on Wednesday, so he will remain behind bars at least until he is arraigned on October 11.
