Five people, including two doctors, were arrested on Thursday morning in connection with the overdose death of “Friends” actor Matthew Perry last year. According to court documents, the defendants have all been charged with illegally supplying the late actor with ketamine, with the doctors serving as Perry’s original source and the others supplying him with the drug once it became too expensive.
The individuals charged include Perry’s former assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, Eric Fleming, a man who provided ketamine to Iwamasa, Jasveen Sangha, also known as “the Ketamine Queen,” and Doctors Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez. US attorneys prosecuting the case say that Sangha supplied ketamine to the doctors, who then distributed it to people including Perry, as well as another deceased individual identified only as C.M.
Iwamasa, Fleming, and Chavez all pled guilty to their respective charges early last week. Sangha and Plasencia were arrested Thursday morning and charged in an 18-count superseding indictment. If convicted, Sangha faces life in prison and Plasencia faces 120 years.
Perry, who battled drug addiction and alcoholism for much of his adult life, was found face-down in his hot tub on October 20, 2023. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner determined that his cause of death was drowning, but the large amounts of ketamine and buprenorphine in his system were seen as contributing factors.
“At the high levels of ketamine found in his postmortem blood specimens, the main lethal effects would be from both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression,” the report said.
