A doctor charged with giving Matthew Perry ketamine in the months leading up to the Friends star’s overdose death has agreed to plead guilty, authorities said Monday.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They said the plea carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and Plascencia is expected to enter the plea in the coming weeks.
Plasencia and a woman accused of being a ketamine dealer had been the primary targets of the prosecution, after three other defendants, including another doctor, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for their co-operation.
Plasencia had been scheduled to start trial in August.
Perry died on Oct. 28, 2023, at age 54. An email to his attorney seeking comment was not immediately answered.
The actor was found by his assistant face down in his hot tub, and paramedics who were called immediately declared him dead.
Off-label treatment
The medical examiner ruled that ketamine was the primary cause of death. The actor had been using the drug through his regular doctor in a legal but off-label treatment for depression that has become increasingly common.
Perry began seeking more ketamine than his doctor would give him. About a month before the actor’s death, he found Plasencia, a doctor who who in turn allegedly asked the other doctor, Mark Chavez, to obtain the drug for him, according to court filings in the Chavez case.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia texted Chavez, according to court filings from prosecutors. The two met up the same day in Costa Mesa, halfway between Santa Monica, Calif., where Plasencia practised, and San Diego, where Chavez practised, and exchanged at least four vials of ketamine, the filings said.
After selling the drugs to Perry for $4,500 US, Plasencia allegedly asked Chavez if he could keep supplying them so they could become Perry’s “go-to,” prosecutors said.
While Plasencia is accused of supplying the bulk of Perry’s ketamine in his final weeks, another defendant, Jasmine Sangha, whom prosecutors allege was a major ketamine dealer, is alleged to have provided the dose that killed the actor. She is also scheduled to go to trial in August.
She has pleaded not guilty — making her the only one of the five people charged in Perry’s death who has not entered a plea agreement.
Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on Friends, when he became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing. He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC’s megahit.
