Drug supplier behind overdose death of transgender activist Cecilia Gentili strikes deal

A convicted felon involved in selling a fatal dose of fentanyl-laced heroin to transgender activist Cecilia Gentili took a plea deal Monday and faces decades in federal prison.

Michael Kuilan, 45, pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn to drug trafficking and weapons possession. He caused the death of the 52-year-old lawyer, author and actor on February 6.

Kuilan, of Brooklyn, supplied the fatal drugs to dealer Antonio Venti, 52, who in turn sold them to Gentili the day before her death. Venti entered into a plea deal on July 18 and is scheduled to be sentenced in October.

“The perpetrators of the tragic poisoning of Cecilia Gentili, a prominent leader of New York's transgender community, have now both admitted their guilt in selling the deadly drugs that caused this heartbreaking death,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said Monday.

As part of their deals, both men admitted that their product caused Gentili's death, prosecutors said Monday. Kulian, who was imprisoned in 2002 and 2005 on drug charges, also pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm as a convicted felon.

“I was in possession of a controlled substance and also a firearm that was in my apartment,” Kuilan told Brooklyn federal court Judge Brian Cogan on Monday. “And I also sold the actual drugs to someone.”

At sentencing on January 22, Kuilan could face a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison, but federal sentencing guidelines put him at a more likely sentence of 22 to 27 years.

As he left the courtroom on Monday, he declined to comment.

As an activist, Gentili pushed for the passage of New York State's Gender Expression and Discrimination Act, which went into effect in 2019. She also starred in the critically acclaimed television series “Pose.”

Gentili founded Trans Equity Consulting, a New York City-based firm that provides consulting for the LGBTQ community and operates a health clinic at Callen Lorde, a center for LGBTQ+ health care. Previously, she was director of policy at Gay Men's Health Crisis.

Her funeral on February 15 was held at Manhattan's venerable St. Patrick's Cathedral, but the ceremony sparked fierce reactions and was condemned by Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who denounced the “disrespect and disrespect” of mourners and asked for a rare Mass of atonement to pray for forgiveness.

Gentili's family called the church's response “hypocritical” and said the funeral “brought precious life and radical joy to the cathedral, in historic defiance of the church's hypocrisy and hatred against transgender people.”