Man who gave prominent SC lawyer fentanyl that killed him gets five years

A man who helped kill the well-known and politically-connected Charleston attorney David Aylor by giving him drugs laced with a fatal dose of fentanyl has received a five-year prison sentence.

In a two-hour Wednesday hearing at the Charleston federal courthouse, Federal Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks sentenced Levi Miles, of Goose Creek, to five years in prison for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl and OxyContin, and distribution of fentanyl, resulting in Aylor’s death. He also has to pay a $40,000 fine.

Miles, 48, was not only Aylor’s cousin, he was also his “best friend” and an investigator in the lawyer’s office too, according to court records.

He was also Aylor’s pusher.

For at least a year leading up to Aylor’s death, Miles provided Aylor — who had a serious addiction problem — with pain killing prescription opioids, according to court records. The day before Aylor died, Miles gave him “what he what he believed to be legitimate pain pills but were illicit pills laced with fentanyl,” prosecutors said in a press release.

Aylor’s body was found at his residence on Jan. 2, 2023. He was 41. An autopsy showed fentanyl caused his death.

Miles got off easy with only a five-year sentence.

Cases similar to Miles have netted at least about 12 years in prison, prosecutors noted in their sentencing memo. They had asked for a “substantial custodial sentence.”

Miles attorney, Nathan Williams of Charleston, argued in court filings that his client’s “extraordinary post-offense rehabilitation, complete sobriety, military service, faith-based transformation, acceptance of responsibility and substantial community support” weighed in favor of a much lighter sentence. There was also no malice intended, and that the death was just a tragic happening, Williams wrote.

It likely didn’t hurt Miles’ chances for a light sentence that Williams is a respected former assistant U.S. attorney with extensive knowledge of, and connections in, the federal court system. In his role as federal prosecutor before becoming a defense attorney, Williams was on the prosecution team that got Charleston mass racial murderer Dylann Roof the death penalty.

“This case is yet another example of the tragic realities of fentanyl in our communities. Let this be a reminder that one pill can kill,” said U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling for South Carolina in a news release.

For nearly two years after Aylor’s death, Miles refused to own up to his part in the death, according to a government sentencing memo.

During that time, the DEA had to wait for months to examine the contents of Aylor’s cell phone due to software extraction issues. Then delays were caused by — since Aylor’s phone contained confidential legal communications — the need for a filtering team to make sure lawyer-client communications were not compromised.

“In November 2024, agents finally received evidence from the victim’s phone, allowing agents to piece together his final hours and identify the Defendant (Miles) as the distributor of the fatal dose of fentanyl,” according to a government sentencing memo.

“The Government believes that if the Defendant (Miles) had cooperated sooner, this massive expenditure of Government resources would not have been necessary,” the government sentencing memo said.

Text messages from Aylor’s cell phone show that in the final year of his life, he “was becoming more reliant on prescription opioids. ... As the year progressed, his efforts to obtain pills became more frequent and more persistent,” the sentencing memo said.

Miles was Aylor’s only source of drugs,“ and to disguise the nature of their communications about pain pills, the two frequently referred to pills as “smurf turds,” “smurfs,” or “turds,” the sentencing memo said.

In Aylor’s final months, his mental condition deteriorated “because of work and personal stressors,” the sentencing memo said. Since Miles and Aylor were in “constant communication,” Miles was aware of the Aylor’s declining mental state amid requesting more pills.

A week before his death, Aylor told Miles in a text that if he couldn’t get pills, he would try “suicide by cop,” a phrase that describes making a deadly threat to a law officer so that the officer will shoot the person, the memo said.

A day before Aylor overdosed, Miles texted him that he “would bring pills and moonshine to the victim’s house,” the memo said.

Prosecutors put the blame squarely on Miles for Aylor’s death. “(Miles’) recklessness cost the victim his life,” a government memo said.

Aylor had kept his addiction secret, and Miles was the “only one who knew of the victim’s fragile mental state and his addiction to pain pills. (Miles) was therefore the only one in a position to intervene,” the government’s memo said. “His recklessness cost the victim his life. Instead of encouraging the victim to seek an alternative to prescription pain pills, (Miles) sourced pills from an acquaintance.”

Miles concealing his giving pills to Aylor thwarted law enforcement for some two years as officers investigated the case, the memo said. ”The nature and circumstances of the offense warrant a significant prison sentence.”

Moreover, Miles’ stonewalling cost the government a chance to prosecute the person who gave Miles the tainted pills, the government’s memo said.

In his sentencing memo urging a light sentence, Williams told the judge that Miles was “raised in a close Christian family” where his father was a pastor and his mother an elementary school teacher.

“Levi was raised in a stable and loving environment grounded in faith, service, and family values,” Williams wrote.

Miles enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2003, where he served as a linguist and finance management technician. He completed Airborne School and earned the global war on terror medal, Williams wrote.

Miles also for years abused alcohol and cocaine, but immediately following Aylor’s death he stopped using them entirely, Williams wrote. “David’s passing was more than a wake-up call for Levi, and the shock of David’s passing caused a significant change in Levi. The PSR further notes that Levi explained that he poured out all alcohol and discarded all drugs from his residence shortly after David’s death and recognized that he may not have survived had he continued living the way he had previously lived.”

More than three dozen people wrote letters in which they described Miles’ love for Aylor, his grief and faith-based rehabilitation and the belief that prison would serve no purpose, Williams wrote.

In exchange for Miles’ cooperation, prosecutors agreed not to pursue the “much more serious offense of distribution of a controlled substance that results in death that mandates a minimum sentence of 240 months,” Williams wrote.

Miles was not a “malicious or predatory trafficker, but ... a deeply flawed individual trapped in an unhealthy and mutually destructive relationship dynamic fueled by addiction and poor judgment,” Williams wrote.

Only two weeks before his death, Aylor had settled an embarrassing dispute with the federal government in which he admitted leaving confidential papers in a jail, papers that “can potentially lead to threats of violence, assaults or violence against witnesses.” By settling, he avoided a public reprimand, The State newspaper reported at the time.

At the time of his death, Aylor headed a 22-person law firm with offices in Charleston, North Charleston and Myrtle Beach.

He was well-known in the legal community and had worked as the prosecutor for the city of Hanahan and an assistant solicitor in the 9th Circuit Solicitor’s Office for Charleston County. He also clerked in the state Senate for the Judiciary Committee under former powerful lawmaker state Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, and clerked for U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Carr and criminal attorney Andy Savage.

This story was originally published May 29, 2026 at 5:15 AM with the headline "Man who gave prominent SC lawyer fentanyl that killed him gets five years."