Mark Chavez has admitted to conspiring to distribute ketamine and his involvement in the death of actor Matthew Perry, one of the stars from “Friends.” Perry, aged 54, was found dead on October 28th last year in a hot tub in the backyard of his residence in Pacific Palisades.
Chavez, also 54, residing in San Diego, has been granted bail pending sentencing. He has surrendered his passport and agreed to forfeit his medical license, no longer practicing medicine. According to city news reports, U.S. prosecutor Martin Estrada described the defendants in this case as part of a “widespread underground criminal network” that supplied ketamine to Perry and others, “exploiting Perry’s addiction issues for profit.”
Chavez is the third out of five defendants who have signed plea agreements with the prosecution. The other two guilty defendants are Perry’s 54-year-old relative Erik Fleming from Hawthorne and Perry’s household assistant, 59-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa from Toluca Lake.
The two defendants who have refused to plead guilty are 41-year-old Jasveen Sangha, also known as the “Ketamine Queen,” residing in North Hollywood; and 42-year-old doctor Salvador Plasencia from Santa Monica. Sangha is charged with distributing ketamine leading to Perry’s death. Plasencia is charged with seven counts of distributing ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying documents related to federal investigations.
Perry portrayed Chandler Bing on “Friends.” In his bestselling memoir “Friends, Lovers, and Horrible Things” in 2022, he discussed his struggles with addiction over the years and his numerous stints in rehab. The Los Angeles County Coroner determined Perry’s cause of death to be “acute effects of ketamine.”
The Coroner’s office stated, “Contributing factors to Mr. Perry’s death included drowning, coronary artery disease, and the influence of ibuprofen used to treat opioid use disorder. The manner of death was accidental.” Ketamine has been approved by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for use as an anesthetic, with DEA Director Anne Milgram noting that ketamine nasal spray has shown clinical efficacy in treating depression.
Court documents reveal that Plasencia learned in late September 2023 that Perry was a successful actor with a history of addiction and was interested in obtaining ketamine. He then contacted Chavez, who had previously operated a ketamine clinic, to acquire ketamine for sale to Perry. In text messages to Chavez, Plasencia discussed how much to charge Perry for ketamine, stating, “I need to know how much this idiot will pay.”
Prosecutors stated that Perry paid $2,000 per vial of ketamine while his distributors paid only $12 per vial. In the fall of last year, when Perry relapsed into addiction, prosecutors said, “The defendants took advantage of this to profit.”
When doctors refused to increase the ketamine dosage for Perry, he turned to unscrupulous physicians. DEA Director Milgram said, “They not only caused harm but profited from it.”
Prosecutors said that in September and October last year, Plasencia distributed ketamine to Perry and his household assistant Iwamasa on at least seven occasions, without legitimate medical purpose. He instructed Iwamasa on how to inject ketamine into Perry and sold the drug to Iwamasa for administration to Perry.
Court documents allege that Plasencia knew Iwamasa had no medical training on how to administer or treat controlled substances and was largely ignorant on the matter.
Prosecutors stated that since mid-October last year, Iwamasa allegedly began obtaining ketamine from Fleming and Sangha to administer to Perry. Subsequently, he administered the drug to Perry based on instructions and syringes provided by Plasencia. Perry passed away on October 28th after multiple ketamine injections. Prosecutors noted that Plasencia was allegedly informed at least a week prior that Perry’s addiction was spiraling out of control but still sold ketamine to Iwamasa.
Following reports of Perry’s death, Sangha sent a text message to Fleming saying, “Delete all our messages.” Prosecutors mentioned that federal agents and detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department found evidence of drug trafficking in Sangha’s residence, including approximately 79 vials of ketamine, around 3.1 pounds of orange pills containing methamphetamine, psychedelic mushrooms, cocaine, and seemingly fraudulently obtained prescription drugs.
If convicted on all charges, Sangha faces 10 years to life imprisonment. Plasencia faces a maximum of 10 years of federal imprisonment for each ketamine-related charge and up to 20 years for each record forgery charge.