Matthew Perry death: Doctor asked ‘how much will this moron pay’ for ketamine
Matthew Perry’s assistant allegedly injected him more than 20 times with ketamine in the four days before he died, according to California prosecutors who have brought charges against five people in connection with his death.
Two doctors, an acquaintance and a woman known as the “ketamine queen” are among those charged with providing the actor with the ketamine in September and October last year.
One doctor named in an indictment filed on Wednesday said in a text message that he “wondere[d] how much this moron will pay” for the drugs.
Some allegedly involved in distributing the drugs referred to vials of ketamine using code words such as “Dr Pepper”, “cans” and “bots”, the prosecutors said.
Salvador Plasencia, a doctor at an urgent care centre, and Jasveen Sangha, a woman prosecutors said was known as the “ketamine queen”, were arrested on Thursday and are accused of supplying drugs to Perry, who was found dead aged 54 at his LA home last year.
A grand jury indictment, unsealed on Thursday, said the two people worked to procure ketamine despite knowing that he had a history of drug abuse.
Prosecutors named Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, an acquaintance named Erik Fleming and another doctor, Mark Chavez, as co-conspirators in an “underground criminal network responsible for distributing [a] large quantity of ketamine to Perry and others”.
Martin Estrada, a US attorney, said in a press briefing on Thursday that the defendants “took advantage of Mr Perry’s addiction issues”, adding: “They knew what they were doing was wrong.”
In a 34-page court filing, prosecutors described how the co-conspirators communicated with each other to procure and administer ketamine to Perry.
In September last year, Mr Iwamasa made contact with Dr Plasencia, a registered doctor, in the hope of buying ketamine.
Over the following weeks, prosecutors said the doctor trained Mr Iwamasa to inject his boss with the drug, and supplied syringes to do so.
He is in turn accused of buying the ketamine from Dr Chavez, another medical doctor, who allegedly bought it from a wholesaler by making fraudulent statements about how he would use the drug.
In one text message, Dr Plasencia described meeting with Perry to Dr Chavez as “like a bad movie”, the court filing said.
On Oct 10, Dr Plasencia is accused of meeting Perry in a car park in Long Beach, California, and injecting him with ketamine inside the car.
Over the following weeks, the pair arranged for Mr Iwamasa to buy more ketamine, which was first administered by Dr Plasencia himself, then by the assistant.
On one occasion, Dr Plasencia allegedly injected Perry with enough ketamine to make him “freeze” and for his blood pressure to “significantly spike”, said prosecutors.
Over the same period, Mr Iwamasa also allegedly bought ketamine from Mr Fleming, an associate who in turn obtained it from Ms Sangha, a “ketamine queen” accused of acting as a drug dealer to the rich and famous in Hollywood.
Prosecutors said Mr Fleming told Mr Iwamasa that the ketamine was “great stuff” and that Ms Sangha “only deal[s] with high end and celebs”.
On Oct 14, Mr Iwamasa allegedly bought 25 vials of ketamine from Mr Fleming for $5,500 (£4,275).
Ten days later, he is accused of buying another 25 vials, which included Perry’s fatal dose.
Between Oct 25 and 27, he allegedly injected Perry with six doses of ketamine each day, followed by three more doses on Oct 28.
Later that day, Perry was discovered dead, face down in his hot tub. The coroner’s report after Perry’s death found that he had a high dosage of ketamine present in his system at the time of his death, which was ruled an accident.
The same day, the court filing shows Ms Sangha instructed Mr Fleming: “Delete all our messages.”
Earlier this year, Ms Sangha was charged with possession of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute. Police raided her home in March and found 79 bottles of ketamine and almost 2,000 methamphetamine pills. She has pleaded not guilty.
Authorities said that contributing factors to Perry’s death had included drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid use disorder.
The actor, who was best known for his role as Chandler Bing in the American sitcom, had been open about his struggle with alcohol and substance abuse before his death, although he said he had stopped using drugs.
The medical examiner’s report after his death found levels of ketamine in his body equivalent to the amount that would be used for anaesthesia.
Perry had been undergoing ketamine infusion treatment for depression, but the quantity of the drug in his body at the time of death could not be attributed to the treatment alone, the examiner said.
In his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry wrote extensively about his struggles with addiction, including during his time filming the hit sitcom.
He said he had taken ketamine as part of treatment for his mental health conditions in a Swiss clinic.
“Ketamine was a very popular street drug in the 1980s. There is a synthetic form of it now, and it’s used for two reasons: to ease pain and help with depression,” he wrote.
He said his addiction had begun in 1997, three years after Friends first aired, when he was prescribed the drug Vicodin to deal with the pain from a jet skiing accident.
During some of the series, he was taking 55 pills a day and said he thought his hangovers had affected his performance on the show.
“One time, in a scene in the coffee house when I’m dressed in a suit, I fell asleep right there on the couch, and disaster was averted only when Matt LeBlanc nudged me awake right before my line,” he wrote. “No one noticed, but I knew how close I’d come.”
His death prompted grief from his co-stars, including Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel Green. “He was happy. He was healthy. He had quit smoking,” she said in December. “I was literally texting with him that morning, funny Matty. He was not in pain. He wasn’t struggling. He was happy.”
Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay, said she had begun rewatching the show in tribute to her friend’s death.
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The Telegraph
