The doctor accused of administering the ketamine that killed Matthew Perry realized the actor could die when he watched him “freeze” from an overdose just days before his death, prosecutors said.
Dr Salvador Plascencia was licensed to prescribe and administer the powerful tranquiliser but needed help from another doctor to keep up with the large quantities the Friends star was consuming in the weeks leading up to his death in October last year.
Plascencia, 42, showed contempt for his client, who had repeatedly sought help for his addictions, asking a corrupt colleague, “I wonder how much this idiot is going to pay,” as Perry’s dependency grew.
But prosecutors say the actor’s life was hanging in the balance when he suffered a seizure during an overdose just 16 days before he died.
“Let’s not do that again,” he nervously told Perry’s assistant.
Matthew Perry was photographed in Los Angeles with his personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa exactly two months before his death. Iwamasa is accused of injecting the Friends star with dozens of doses of ketamine, including the one that killed him.
Dr Salvador Plascencia, 42, allegedly called the Friends star a “moron” as he made thousands of dollars from the ketamine he gave her in the days before her death.
The shocking details emerged Thursday when Plascencia and four other alleged co-conspirators were arrested following a grand jury indictment.
On October 28, Perry was found unconscious in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home by his live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa. The cause of death was later determined to be “acute effects of ketamine.”
Iwamasa has since admitted to administering the fatal doses to the actor, after having been trained by Plascencia to administer them.
On Oct. 4, Iwamasa reported that he had successfully injected Perry, noting that he “found the sweet spot, but trying different places caused him to run out” of ketamine.
The affidavit alleges that Perry spent $55,000 on ketamine supplied by Plascencia in the two months before he died, and that Iwamasa injected Perry with 27 doses of ketamine in just five days.
San Diego doctor Mark Chavez, 54, admitted to diverting supplies from his clinic by filling fake prescriptions as Plascencia struggled to keep up with Perry’s use.
On one occasion, Plascenica worked with Chavez to charge Perry $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost $12 after he became increasingly desperate to get the drug, according to the documents.
Iwamasa relayed Perry’s requests in coded language, referring to the ketamine bottles as “Dr Pepper,” “cans” and “bots” via encrypted messaging apps.
At one point she asked if she could pay with “anything other than cash” because “it’s hard to get to the bank on the fly with everything that’s going on and happening so fast right now.”
But doctors struggled to keep up with demand and Iwamasa turned to a friend of the actor, Eric Fleming, 54, for additional supplies.
He then turned to Hollywood’s alleged “ketamine queen” Jasveen Sangha, 41, and told Iwamasa: “She only deals with high-level people and celebrities. If it wasn’t something excellent, she would lose her business.”
Sangha sold dozens of vials of the drug to Iwamasa through Fleming and was so pleased with the size of her orders that she added some lollipops made from ketamine as a “side.”
But she was well aware of the drug’s risks, prosecutors say, after allegedly selling it to her client Cody McLaury just hours before his overdose death in 2019.
“The ketamine you sold my brother killed him,” an angry relative told him in a text message. “It’s listed as the cause of death.”
Jasveen Sangha, 41, is best known as the “Ketamine Queen” of North Hollywood. Prosecutors say she is the linchpin of a “vast underground criminal network” that supplied the Friends star with the fatal dose that killed him in October 2023.
The Friends star and Iwamasa had been living in a $49,000-a-month Beverly Hills property for just over a year while their Pacific Palisades apartment underwent renovations.
Iwamasa had originally relied on Plascencia to inject Perry, which was typically done at Perry’s house.
But on Oct. 10, the three men met at a Long Beach parking lot, where Plascencia injected Perry inside a parked car.
Two days later, Plascencia issued his warning following Perry’s near-fatal overdose, but handed Iwamasa more bottles before leaving.
As the assistant gained experience, he was able to inject Perry up to six times a day before he was found dead in his hot tub on Oct. 28.
When news of the beloved actor’s death leaked that night, Sangha ordered Fleming to “delete all our messages.”
But police followed her and obtained permission to raid her home, a “drug emporium”, in March this year.
Agents found ‘significant quantities of illegal drugs, including approximately 1,978 grams of orange pills that field tested positive for methamphetamine, 79 bottles containing a clear liquid that field tested positive for ketamine, and several other suspected narcotics.’
Prosecutors said Sangha was a “large-scale drug trafficker” previously identified by the DEA, LAPD homicide detectives and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Investigators said they discovered a “drug emporium” at Sangha’s home during a raid in March 2024, including 79 bottles containing a clear liquid that tested positive in a field test for ketamine.
Prosecutors say Sangha’s distribution of ketamine on Oct. 4, 2023, led to Perry’s death
The indictment alleges the defendants sold Perry a vial of ketamine costing $12 for $2,000 as he became increasingly dependent on the substance.
Analysis of his phone found “conversations related to the sale of pressed methamphetamine pills and ketamine.”
And videos recovered from her phone showed her “cooking ketamine,” a DEA agent wrote.
She faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted on all charges.
Plascencia is charged with seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying documents or records related to the federal investigation.
He could 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.
Fleming admitted to obtaining ketamine from Sangha and distributing it to Iwamasa, who later admitted to giving the drug to the star.
Iwamasa and Fleming face up to 15 and 25 years, respectively, when sentenced in their federal cases.
Chavez has been charged in a criminal proceeding pursuant to a plea agreement and will be arraigned on August 30. At sentencing, Chavez faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
In his latest Instagram post, Perry shared images of himself at home in the hot tub where he would soon be found dead.
Alleged drug dealer Sangha could face life in prison if convicted of all crimes
“We allege that each of the defendants played a key role in his death by falsely prescribing, selling or injecting the ketamine that caused Matthew Perry’s tragic death,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
‘Matthew Perry’s journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw it as a payday, to street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials.’
The actor had been open about his struggles with substance abuse.
In 2022, he said he had spent approximately $9 million battling his addictions in 15 rehab stays.
He already had a legitimate prescription for ketamine at the time of his death, but had not used it for a week and a half, allowing prosecutors to conclude that Sangha supplied the ketamine that killed him.
An autopsy determined the amount in Perry’s blood was within the range used for general anesthesia during surgery, and listed “acute effects of ketamine” as the primary cause of death.
“These defendants were more concerned with profiting from Mr. Perry than with his well-being,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said at a news conference.
‘Drug dealers who sell dangerous substances play with other people’s lives out of greed.
‘This case, along with our many other prosecutions against drug traffickers who cause deaths, sends a clear message that we will hold drug traffickers accountable for the deaths they cause.’