A California doctor who supplied ketamine to Friends star Matthew Perry has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison – becoming the first person to receive a sentence in the actor’s overdose death.
Dr Salvador Plasencia was one of five charged in a multiyear federal investigation that examined how Perry acquired the dissociative anaesthetic through an underground drug network in Hollywood.
Perry, 54, was found dead at his Los Angeles home in 2023 after years of struggling with depression and addiction.
The actor’s family asked the judge for a lengthy sentence, calling Plasencia the “most culpable”, and detailing their struggle to understand why he repeatedly supplied Perry with drugs.
Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, was among several family members who spoke in court ahead of Plasencia’s sentencing. She highlighted text messages included in court records, where Plasencia had called Perry a “moron” and wondered how much he would be willing to pay for the drugs.
She was emotional, addressing Plasencia directly. “There was nothing moronic about that man,” his mother said, adding that the doctor took an oath to protect people and he should have protected her son.
Plasencia also spoke in court and addressed Perry’s family, expressing both regret and remorse while his own mother cried in a seat behind him. Plasencia said he has a two-year-old son.
“I want to raise him right,” he said. “I also think about how to explain this to him.”
He also apologised to Perry’s family.
“I failed myself. There is no excuse. I can’t undo what’s been done. I know that. I should have protected him, as his mother said. I’m just so sorry.”
Along with his prison term, the Santa Monica doctor was ordered by US District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett to pay a $5,600 (£4,195) fine. He was immediately taken into federal custody following the sentencing decision.
Plasencia pleaded guilty over the summer to four counts of distributing ketamine. The charges carried a maximum of 40 years in prison, though prosecutors had asked for a sentence of three years.
The four others charged in the case – including another doctor, Perry’s assistant and the two people who supplied the ketamine dose that killed him – have also pleaded guilty and are set to be sentenced in the coming months.
Best known for playing Chandler Bing on Friends, the sitcom star was vocal and public over the years with his struggles with depression and drug addiction.
Ahead of Wednesday’s sentencing, Perry’s family filed letters, known as victim impact statements, to the judge to consider ahead of making the sentencing decision.
“Matthew’s recovery counted on you saying NO,” his father, John, and step-mother, Debbie, wrote in an emotional letter. “Your motives? I can’t imagine. A doctor whose life is devoted to helping people?”
The actor’s family said the loss had “devastated” them as their “next patriarch” is now gone, blaming Plasencia – who Perry’s mother and stepfather called a “jackal” – for repeatedly breaking his Hippocratic oath.
His mother and step-father, Keith Morrison, in their victim impact statement detailed how hard the loss has been to comprehend. They said Perry had spent time trying to recover and was hoping for another acting comeback.
“He wanted, needed, deserved..a third act. It was ..in the planning. And then, those jackals.”
In a letter to the judge last month, Plasencia apologised and said he had fully taken responsibility for his actions and role in Perry’s death. He explained that his medical clinic had been struggling and despite seeing Perry’s “signs of addiction”, the offer of “large sums of money was appealing”.
Plasencia also said that he voluntarily surrendered his medical licence when he was arrested and gave up his clinic and the profession that once defined him.
Ketamine has some hallucinogenic effects and is meant to be administered only by a physician.
The actor was taking legal, prescribed amounts of the drug to treat his depression, but then started wanting more than what was provided.
Court documents as part of the federal investigation show it led him to multiple doctors and a woman prosecutors called the “Ketamine Queen” who supplied vast amounts of the drug and others from her Los Angeles home, which authorities called a “drug-selling emporium”.
Prosecutors say Plasencia – also known as “Dr P” – injected Perry with ketamine at his home and in the parking lot of an aquarium in Long Beach, about 25 miles south of Los Angeles.
Plasencia taught Perry’s assistant Kenneth Iwamasa – who also pleaded guilty in the case – how to administer the drug and sold additional vials for them to keep at home, according to court documents filed for the plea agreement.
Prosecutors said between 30 September 2023 and 12 October 2023, Plasencia sold twenty 5ml (100mg/ml) vials of ketamine, ketamine lozenges, and syringes to Perry and his assistant.
They said Plasencia and others charged in the case “took advantage of Mr Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves”.
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