Por Fred Shuster
City News Serice
LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Mark Chavez, one of two doctors charged in connection with the death of “Friends” actor Matthew Perry, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to distribute ketamine, prosecutors announced Friday, Aug. 30.
Chavez, 54, of San Diego, is the third of five defendants in the case to enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors. He made an initial appearance in federal court in Los Angeles on Friday but did not enter a plea.
At the hearing, U.S. District Judge Jean Rosenbluth ordered him released on $50,000 bail. He also ordered Chavez, a doctor who earlier this week in a separate administrative hearing agreed to surrender his California medical license, not to practice medicine.
The federal judge overseeing the case will schedule a change of plea hearing in the near future, at which time Chavez is expected to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Perry was found dead in October in a hot tub behind his Pacific Palisades home.
The charges against the five defendants, including a live-in assistant, two doctors and a woman known as the “Ketamine Queen,” were announced Aug. 15 by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles. U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said the suspects are part of a “vast underground criminal network” that supplied ketamine to Perry and others and “exploited Mr. Perry’s addiction problems to enrich themselves.”
Those charged in connection with Perry’s death are:
– Jasveen Sangha, 41, also known as the “Ketamine Queen,” who ran a safe house in North Hollywood;
– Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 42, alias “Dr. P,” from Santa Monica;
– Erik Fleming, 54, of Hawthorne, who pleaded guilty Aug. 8 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death, admitting he distributed the ketamine that killed Perry, prosecutors said;
– Kenneth Iwamasa, 59, of Toluca Lake, Perry’s assistant, who pleaded guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, and is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 6. Prosecutors say he conspired with Sangha, Fleming and Plasencia to illegally obtain ketamine and distribute it to Perry; and
– Chavez, who admitted in his plea agreement to selling ketamine to Plasencia, including ketamine he had diverted from his former ketamine clinic. Prosecutors said Chavez also obtained additional ketamine to transfer to Plasencia by lying to a wholesale ketamine distributor and submitting a false prescription in the name of a former patient without that patient’s knowledge or consent.
Sangha and Plasencia are charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Sangha is also charged with one count of maintaining a drug-related premises, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine and five counts of distribution of ketamine.
The indictment alleges that Sangha’s distribution of ketamine caused Perry’s death. Plasencia is charged with seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying documents or records related to the federal investigation.
Plasencia and Sangha have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Sangha was ordered held without bail. Plasencia’s bail was set at $100,000 and he was expected to be released. Both were given preliminary trial dates in October, though the case is unlikely to move to trial that quickly. Plasencia was scheduled to go to trial on Oct. 8 and Sangha on Oct. 15.
A status conference in the case against Sangha and Plasencia is scheduled for Sept. 4 before U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett in downtown Los Angeles.
“These defendants were more concerned with profiting from Mr. Perry than with his well-being,” Estrada said. “Drug dealers who sell dangerous substances are playing with other people’s lives out of greed.”
Local and federal authorities confirmed in May that they were investigating how Perry obtained the prescription drug ketamine, which contributed to his death on Oct. 28 at age 54.
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner determined the cause of death was “acute effects of ketamine.”
“Factors contributing to Mr. Perry’s death include drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, used to treat opioid use disorder. The manner of death is an accident,” the medical examiner’s office said in a statement.
Ketamine is approved by the DEA for use as an anesthetic. A nasal spray version is used to treat depression in a clinical setting, said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
According to court documents, in late September, Plasencia learned that Perry, a successful actor whose history of drug addiction was well documented, was interested in obtaining ketamine. The use of ketamine requires a health care professional to monitor a patient who has received the drug.
After learning of Perry’s interest in ketamine, Plasencia contacted Chavez, who previously operated a ketamine clinic, to obtain ketamine to sell to Perry, prosecutors allege.
In text messages to Chavez, Plasencia allegedly discussed how much to charge Perry for the ketamine, saying, “I wonder how much this asshole is going to pay.”
Prosecutors said Perry paid $2,000 per vial of ketamine, while his dealers paid $12 per vial.
Perry’s 2022 best-selling memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” tells of his years-long struggle with addiction. The “Friends” star, who played the character Chandler Bing on the series, says he went through detox dozens of times.
Last fall, Perry fell back into addiction, “and the defendants took advantage of it to make a profit for themselves,” Estrada said during a news conference in downtown Los Angeles when the charges were announced.
When doctors refused to increase his ketamine dosage, Perry turned to unscrupulous doctors, according to Milgram.
“Instead of doing no harm, they did harm so they could make more money,” he added.
Prosecutors allege that last September and October, Plasencia distributed ketamine to Perry and Iwamasa without a legitimate medical purpose on at least seven occasions. He taught Iwamasa how to inject Perry with ketamine, selling the drug to him to administer to the actor, including once inside a car parked in a Long Beach parking lot, prosecutors allege.
Plasencia knew that Iwamasa had never received medical training and knew little, if anything, about administering or treating patients with controlled substances, according to court documents.
Beginning in mid-October, Iwamasa also allegedly began obtaining ketamine for Perry from Fleming and Sangha. After discussing prices with Iwamasa, Fleming coordinated drug sales with Sangha and brought cash from Iwamasa to Sangha’s North Hollywood stash house to purchase vials of ketamine. Sangha has distributed ketamine and other illegal drugs from his North Hollywood stash house since at least 2019, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Sangha was aware of the danger of ketamine. In August 2019, Sangha allegedly sold the anesthetic to victim Cody McLaury in the hours before his death. The indictment alleges that despite all of this, Sangha continued to sell ketamine from his home.
Using instructions and syringes provided by Plasencia, Iwamasa injected Perry with the ketamine sold to him by Fleming and Sangha, including on Oct. 28, when Perry died at his Pacific Palisades home after receiving multiple injections, prosecutors said. Plasencia allegedly sold the ketamine to Iwamasa despite being told at least a week earlier that Perry’s ketamine addiction was out of control, prosecutors said.
After Perry’s death was reported on the news, Sangha texted Fleming: “Delete all our messages,” court documents show.
Following the actor’s death, federal agents and Los Angeles Police Department detectives executed search warrants at Sangha’s home, where they found evidence of drug trafficking, including about 79 vials of ketamine, approximately 3.1 pounds of orange pills containing methamphetamine, psilocybin mushrooms, cocaine and prescription drugs that appeared to have been obtained fraudulently, according to prosecutors.
If convicted on all charges, Sangha would face a sentence of between 10 years and life in prison. Plasencia would face up to 10 years in federal prison for each ketamine-related charge and up to 20 years in federal prison for each falsifying records charge, prosecutors said.
Iwamasa and Fleming face up to 15 and 25 years, respectively, when sentenced in their federal cases.
At sentencing, Chavez faces up to 10 years in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Los Angeles Police Department Chief Dominic Choi said his department is “committed to investigating every case like this,” regardless of the victim’s fame or financial status.
Following news of the arrests, Perry’s stepfather, “Dateline” correspondent Keith Morrison, issued a statement on behalf of the family saying, “We were and continue to be heartbroken over Matthew’s death, but it has helped to know that law enforcement has taken his case very seriously. We look forward to justice taking its course.”
