Man pleads guilty for charges related to death of transgender activist

September 23, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

Share this:

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — A BROOKLYN MAN PLEADED GUILTY on Monday, Sept. 23, in federal court/Eastern District NY to drug possession and trafficking charges that led to the death of a transgender woman who had immigrated from South America. Michael Kuilan, 44, pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Brian M. Cogan to a charge that he distributed and possessed with intent to distribute heroin and fentanyl. Kuilan also pleaded guilty to a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Court documents and facts presented at the guilty plea proceeding showed that, on Feb. 6, 2024, Gentili was found dead in her bedroom in Brooklyn from a combined effect of controlled substances including fentanyl, xylazine, cocaine and heroin. Text messages, cell site data, and other evidence revealed that Kuilan and his accomplice, 52-year-old Antonio Venti of West Babylon, sold the fentanyl and heroin mixture to Gentili on Feb. 5, 2024, and Kuilan supplied Venti with those lethal narcotics. Law enforcement officers searching Kuilan’s Williamsburg apartment found hundreds of baggies of fentanyl, as well as a handgun and ammunition.

Co-defendant Venti had already pleaded guilty before Judge Cogan to the same drug offense on July 30. Sentencing for him takes place Oct. 14; sentencing for Kuilan takes place on Jan. 22, 2025.

✰✰✰