A prosecutor says five people, including a physician from San Diego County, were charged in connection with Matthew Perry's death from a ketamine overdose last year, including the actor's assistant.
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada announced the charges Thursday, saying the doctors supplied Perry with a large amount of ketamine and even wondered in a text message how much the former “Friends” star would be willing to pay.
“These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong," Estrada said.
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Prosecutors said Thursday that one of the defendants was Dr. Mark Chavez, 54, of San Diego. A news release issued that same day by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California said Sanchez has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, adding that "Chavez admitted in his plea agreement to selling ketamine to [Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 42, a.k.a. “Dr. P,” of Santa Monica], including ketamine that he had diverted from his former ketamine clinic. Chavez also obtained additional ketamine to transfer to Plasencia by making false representations to a wholesale ketamine distributor and by submitting a fraudulent prescription in the name of a former patient without that patient’s knowledge or consent."
In Chavez's plea agreement, prosecutors state that "[among] other things, [Chavez's] License Authorization Form contained false statements, including that defendant CHAVEZ worked for the facility “Dreamscape Ketamine – The Health MD." That form was submitted on Oct. 2, 2023, However, the business's website posted on social media on March 26, 2023, that he was one of the owners of Dreamscape.
On that Meet the Owners page, it says Chavez was certified in emergency medicine, was a health coach and also an entrepreneur. It goes on the say he graduated from UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, is the author of the book "The 5 Healthy Habits of Healthy People" and is the inventor of the Gravity Ball, "the world's most functional medicine ball."
For his part, Plasencia is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying documents or records related to the federal investigation.
Perry died in October due to a ketamine overdose and received several injections of the drug on the day he died from his live-in personal assistant. The assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, is the one who found Perry dead later that day.
"The superseding indictment also alleges that Plasencia conspired with Chavez about inventory, price, and availability of ketamine to sell to Perry and Iwamasa," the DOJ news release also alleges. "Chavez, in turn, sold Plasencia orally administered ketamine lozenges that he obtained after writing a fraudulent prescription in a patient’s name without her knowledge or consent, and lied to wholesale ketamine distributors to buy additional vials of liquid ketamine that Chavez intended to sell to Plasencia for distribution to Perry."
The Death of Matthew Perry
Two of the people, including one of the doctors charged, have been arrested, Estrada said. Two of the defendants, including Iwamasa, have pleaded guilty to charges already, and Chavez has agreed to plead guilty.
Iwamasa's attorneys did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
The prosecutor said the defendants exchanged messages soon after Perry's death referencing ketamine as the cause of death. Estrada said they tried to cover up their involvement in supplying Perry ketamine, a powerful anesthetic that is sometimes used to treat chronic pain and depression.
Los Angeles police said in May that they were working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service with a probe into why the 54-year-old had so much of the surgical anesthetic in his system.
Iwamasa found the actor face down in his hot tub on Oct. 28, and paramedics who were called immediately declared him dead.
His autopsy, released in December, found that the amount of ketamine in his blood was in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.
The decades-old drug has seen a huge surge in use in recent years as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain. People close to Perry told coroner’s investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy.
But the medical examiner said Perry’s last treatment 1 1/2 weeks earlier wouldn’t explain the levels of ketamine in his blood. The drug is typically metabolized in a matter of hours. At least two doctors were treating Perry, a psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist who served as his primary care physician, the medical examiner’s report said. No illicit drugs or paraphernalia were found at his house.
Ketamine was listed as the primary cause of death, which was ruled an accident with no foul play suspected, the report said. Drowning and other medical issues were contributing factors, the coroner said.
Perry had years of struggles with addiction dating back to his time on “Friends,” when he became one of the biggest television stars of his generation as Chandler Bing alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC’s megahit sitcom.
