Five people have been charged in connection with the death of Matthew Perry.
Five people, including his personal assistant and two doctors, have been charged in connection with the death of Matthew Perry in what prosecutors called a vast underground criminal network dedicated to procuring the Friends star the powerful surgical anesthetic that killed him.
Doctors took advantage of Perry’s history of addiction in the final months of his life last year to provide him with ketamine in quantities they knew were dangerous, U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in announcing the charges Thursday.
“They knew what they were doing was wrong,” Estrada said. “They knew what they were doing was putting Mr. Perry in great danger, but they did it anyway.”
One doctor even wrote in a text message: “I wonder how much this idiot is going to pay. Let’s find out,” according to an indictment made public Thursday.
Perry died in October of a ketamine overdose, and prosecutors said he received multiple injections the day he died from his personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who found Perry dead later that day and was the first to speak to investigators.
In recent years, the use of ketamine as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain has increased dramatically. While the drug is not approved for those conditions, doctors are free to prescribe the medication for so-called off-label uses.
Perry had been receiving regular ketamine infusion treatments for depression in amounts not sufficient to explain her death from her regular doctors, who were not among those charged, authorities said.
When doctors refused to give him more, he desperately turned to others.
“We’re not talking about legitimate ketamine treatment,” Estrada said. “We’re talking about two doctors who abused the trust that had been given to them, abused their licenses to put another person’s life at risk.”
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said the actor once paid $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost one of the doctors about $12. Perry paid the doctors about $55,000 in cash in the two months before his death, Estrada said.
Estrada said two of the people, including one of the accused doctors, were arrested Thursday. Two of the defendants, including Iwamasa, have already pleaded guilty to the charges, and a third person has agreed to plead guilty.
Among those arrested Thursday was Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who is charged with seven counts of distributing ketamine and also two counts related to allegations he falsified records after Perry’s death.
Plasencia appeared briefly in court Thursday afternoon and pleaded not guilty. He can be released on $100,000 bail.
Plasencia’s attorney, Stefan Sacks, asked that his client be allowed to continue seeing patients at his office when he is released, saying he had already surrendered his DEA license to prescribe dangerous drugs and that Perry’s case was an isolated one.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian V. Yanniello objected, saying Plasencia had essentially acted as a street-level drug dealer.
Magistrate Alka Sagar ruled that Plasencia could only treat patients if they signed a document saying they had been informed of the charges against him.
Ultimately, Dr. Plasencia acted with the best medical intentions he believed, and his actions certainly did not rise to the level of criminal conduct, Sacks said outside court. His only concern was to provide the best medical treatment and not cause harm, Sacks said. Unfortunately, harm did occur, but it was after his involvement.
The other person arraigned in the case Thursday was Jasveen Sangha, whom prosecutors described as a drug dealer known to clients as the Ketamine Queen, a nickname her attorney derided as created for media consumption during her court hearing. Ketamine supplied by Sangha caused Perry’s death, authorities said.
Sangha pleaded not guilty and was denied bail. She had been arrested for the first time in the case, charged with possession of ketamine with intent to distribute and released on bail in March, while authorities kept Perry’s involvement secret.
But a new indictment unsealed Thursday alleges a direct connection to the actress’s death, and the judge ruled that she should remain in custody out of concerns over prosecutors’ claims that she destroyed evidence and used money from drug sales to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Plasencia could face up to 120 years in prison if convicted, prosecutors said, and Sangha could receive life in prison.
Records show Plasencia’s medical license is in good standing and there are no complaints on record, though it is set to expire in October.
A San Diego physician, Dr. Mark Chavez, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Prosecutors allege that Chavez funneled ketamine to Plasencia, obtaining some of the drug from a wholesale distributor through a fraudulent prescription.
The prosecutor said the defendants exchanged messages shortly after Perry’s death in which ketamine was referenced as the cause of death. Estrada said they deleted messages and falsified medical records in an attempt to cover up their involvement.
Los Angeles police said in May they were working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service on an investigation into why the 54-year-old man had so much surgical anesthesia in his system.
Iwamasa found the actor face down in his hot tub on Oct. 28, and paramedics who were called immediately pronounced him dead.
The assistant received the ketamine from Erik Fleming, who pleaded guilty to obtaining the drug from Sangha and delivering it to Iwamasa. In total, he delivered 50 vials of ketamine for Perry’s use, including 25 delivered four days before the actor’s death.
Perry’s autopsy, released in December, found the amount of ketamine in his blood was within the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.
First published: August 16, 2024 | 7:31 a.m. IS
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