Dealer Gets 19 Years in Death of Trans Activist Cecilia Gentili
Michael Kuilan will serve nearly two decades for selling the fentanyl-laced drugs that killed the beloved trans activist and "Pose" actress.
A New York City man will spend the next two decades in prison for selling fentanyl-laced heroin that caused the fatal overdose of prominent transgender activist Cecilia Gentili, found dead in her home on February 6, 2024.
The 52-year-old was killed from a mixture of fentanyl, heroin, xylazine (also known as “tranq,” a veterinary sedative that is often mixed with other drugs related to overdoses), and cocaine, according to the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office.
Police used text messages, along with cell site data, to link two men to Gentili’s death, with 53-year-old Antonio Venti of Babylon, N.Y., selling the fentanyl-laced mixture to the veteran LGBTQ activist and 44-year-old Michael Kuilan supplying the drugs to Venti.
Law enforcement also searched an apartment in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood belonging to Kuilan, at which point they discovered hundreds of baggies of fentanyl, as well as a handgun and ammunition.
On May 27, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan of the Eastern District of New York sentenced Kuilan to 19 years in prison.
As part of his sentence, Kuilan was ordered to pay $24,482 in restitution and forfeit $30,000 and the handgun seized by police when searching his apartment.
Kuilan, who has three prior state felony convictions for selling heroin, was also sentenced to 15 years for unlawfully possessing a firearm as a felon. That sentence will run concurrently with the 19-year sentence.
Last year, both Kuilan and Venti pleaded guilty to distributing the deadly drug mixture that killed Gentili in separate hearings, although both claimed to not know that the heroin mixture contained fentanyl.
Venti — who considered Gentili a friend and expressed deep remorse over her death — was sentenced to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay $24,432 in restitution. His sentence was shorter than Kuilan’s due to his lack of previous criminal convictions.
“Cecilia Gentili was tragically poisoned from fentanyl-laced heroin,” Joseph Nocella, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement in which he pledged to be “relentless” in prosecuting fentanyl dealers. “[T]he perpetrators who sold the deadly drugs to Gentili are being held accountable.”
“Michael Kuilan sold the lethal drugs that took the life of LGBTQIA+ activist and leader Cecilia Gentili, and now, he is being held accountable for this horrible crime,” New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement. “While we can sadly never bring Cecilia back, today, some semblance of justice is finally being served.”
Gentili, an advocate for transgender people, sex workers, and immigrants, first came to the United States as an undocumented immigrant at age 26.
She endured homelessness, struggled with drug addiction, was trafficked for prostitution, and was arrested several times before being incarcerated at Rikers Island.
Following her release, she spent 17 months in a substance abuse rehabilitation facility and claimed to have remained sober for many years.
In those interceding decades, Gentili founded multiple advocacy groups and firms, including Transgender Equity Consulting, a firm specializing in DEI consulting; Decrim NY, an organization advocating for the decriminalization of sex work; and COIN, an organization that partnered with Callen-Lorde Community Health Center to provide free health care to sex workers.
Gentili lobbied liberal lawmakers to create support services for survivors of sex trafficking and to repeal “loitering” laws that had historically been used by law enforcement to harass or detain transgender people on suspicion of being sex workers.
She appeared as an actress on the FX show Pose, a drama about transgender people of color during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and authored a memoir, Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist, which won the Stonewall Book Award from the American Library Association in 2023.
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