Five people, including Matthew Perry’s assistant and two doctors, were charged in connection with the death of the “Friends” actor last year, authorities said Thursday.
The Wall Street Journal reports Perry, who struggled with addiction for much of his life, got hooked on ketamine last fall and died after taking some obtained from a drug dealer, authorities said at a news briefing Thursday. The 54-year-old Perry was found unresponsive in a pool at his Los Angeles home in October.
The five people face various charges, including ketamine distribution and falsifying records related to the investigation into Perry’s death, according to federal prosecutors in California’s central district. One of the doctors, 42-year-old Salvador Plasencia, and the drug dealer, 41-year-old Jasveen Sangha, were arrested on Thursday. Sangha is known as the “ketamine queen,” prosecutors said. |
| Perry (3rd from right) rose to fame as a cast member of “Friends” |
The other three charged—who helped prescribe, sell or inject the ketamine that killed Perry—have signed plea agreements.Sangha and Plasencia pleaded not guilty, authorities said.
“They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry but they did it anyway,” said Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney in the state’s central district.
Perry’s death came as a shock. A year earlier, he had returned to the public eye to promote his memoir about substance-abuse issues. He had gone to a clinic to treat his depression and anxiety and had received intravenous ketamine, according to Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. After clinic doctors refused to increase his dosage, he spent tens of thousands of dollars obtaining vials of the powerful anesthetic from drug dealers.
Perry’s death brought fresh attention to the debate over ketamine, which is increasingly used for recreational purposes. Ketamine is a mind-altering anesthetic approved by the Food and Drug Administration to anesthetize people and animals.
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