California doctor Mark Chavez has pleaded guilty to illegally distributing ketamine in connection to the overdose death of Friends star Matthew Perry. Perry died in October 2023 at the age of 54 from acute effects of ketamine and other factors. Chavez admitted to obtaining ketamine with a fraudulent prescription for Perry and providing the drug to another physician, Salvador Plasencia, who administered it to the actor. Plasencia and another defendant, Jasveen Sangha, are set to go on trial in March.
Perry’s live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who admitted to injecting Perry with ketamine, and a middleman involved in obtaining the drug have already pleaded guilty. Authorities said Plasencia purchased ketamine from Chavez, who referred to Perry as a “moron” in text messages discussing the drug’s cost. Chavez has surrendered his medical license and faces up to 10 years in prison at his sentencing in April. Perry had struggled with substance abuse for decades, and was using ketamine for depression through legal channels before seeking more of the drug through illicit means. Chavez’s guilty plea is part of an agreement with prosecutors, who are using his cooperation to build a case against Plasencia and Sangha. Perry’s death has brought attention to the misuse of ketamine, an anaesthetic increasingly used off-label for depression treatment.
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