A man charged with selling US rapper Mac Miller the drugs that killed him last year has pleaded not guilty in a Los Angeles court.
Cameron Pettit stood alongside his lawyer and spoke only to answer a judge's questions as he entered the plea on Thursday.
Prosecutors allege Pettit, 28, of West Hollywood, sold Miller cocaine and pills that contained the powerful opioid fentanyl two days before the 26-year-old rapper died of an accidental overdose in September 2018.
Pettit has been in custody since September 4.
He is among three men charged in connection with Miller's death and each faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years in federal prison and the potential for life without parole if convicted.
Citing Instagram messages sent shortly after Miller's death in which Pettit talks with a friend about disappearing or leaving the country, a judge has kept him in custody since his initial arrest, calling him a flight risk.
Two other men, Stephen Walter, 46, of Los Angeles and Ryan Reavis, 36, of Lake Havasu City, Arizona, have also been arrested in the case and indicted on similar charges.
The indictment alleges Walter supplied the fentanyl and cocaine that Pettit sold to Miller and that Reavis acted as a middleman for the fentanyl sale.
Miller's assistant found him unresponsive in his Los Angeles home on September 7, 2018 and he was declared dead soon after.
Australian Associated Press