Doctor pleads guilty to supplying ‘Friends’ star Matthew Perry with ketamine
[LOS ANGELES] A doctor charged in connection with the drug overdose death of actor Matthew Perry pleaded guilty on Wednesday to supplying the Friends star with ketamine.
Salvador Plasencia, 43, one of five people charged over Perry’s death, pleaded guilty in a federal court in Los Angeles to four counts of distribution of ketamine.
Plasencia is to be sentenced on Dec 3 and faces up to 40 years in prison.
He will also surrender his medical license.
Plasencia’s attorney, Karen Goldstein, said after the hearing that her client regretted his actions.
“Dr. Plasencia is profoundly remorseful for the treatment decisions he made while providing ketamine to Matthew Perry,” Goldstein said in a statement.
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“He is fully accepting responsibility... acknowledging his failure to protect Mr. Perry, a patient who was especially vulnerable due to addiction.”
Plasencia did not provide Perry with the fatal dose of ketamine but supplied the actor with the drug in the weeks before he was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home.
Another doctor, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty in October to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.
Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia wrote in one text message presented by prosecutors.
Jasveen Sangha, the alleged “Ketamine Queen” who supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities, is charged with selling Perry the dose that killed him. She has pleaded not guilty.
Perry’s live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to charges of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Addiction struggles
The actor’s lengthy struggles with substance addiction were well-documented, but his death at age 54 sent shockwaves through the global legions of Friends fans.
A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine - an anesthetic - in his system.
In his plea deal with prosecutors, Plasencia said he went to Perry’s home to administer ketamine by injection and distributed 20 vials of the drug over a roughly two-week period in autumn 2023.
Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression.
But prosecutors say that before his death he became addicted to the substance, which also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug.
Friends, which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive following and made megastars of previously unknown actors.
Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.
In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries.
In his 2022 memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry described going through detox dozens of times.
“I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.” AFP
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