The ‘Ketamine Queen,’ two doctors and Matthew Perry’s assistant among five arrested in ‘Friends’ actor’s death

There is a new twist in the case of Matthew Perry’s death. Los Angeles police on Thursday arrested five people, including two doctors and a drug dealer, in connection with the overdose death of the Friends star, who died in October 2023 at the age of 54. Among those arrested are Kenneth Iwamasa, the actor’s personal assistant, who found him unconscious that afternoon in the Jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home, and Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen.” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada has accused this group of supplying the drug to Perry despite being well aware of his abuse and addiction problems.

At the center of the scandal are two doctors, Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez. According to prosecutors, both took advantage of Perry’s addiction to enrich themselves by selling him ketamine. Ketamine is used in the United States to treat depression and anxiety, but only in clinics that operate under strict controls. According to authorities, Perry developed a dependence on the intravenous route of this substance. When local clinics refused to increase his dosage, the actor sought out people who would agree to supply him with ketamine.

“Doctor Plasencia and Doctor Chavez violated the oath they took to care for their patients. Instead of do harm. They did harm,” Anne Milgram, director of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said Thursday. The official said that the doctors sold Perry vials of ketamine for $2,000, despite the fact that they bought them for $12 per unit. According to Estrada, Perry paid as much as $55,000 for about 20 vials.

Easy access to ketamine only worsened Perry’s addiction: the actor had dealt with alcohol and opioids for pain management, such as Vicodin, all his life. According to Milgram, the worse his condition became, the more the actor sought out the drug, turning to street drug dealers to get it. The fatal dose was given to him by Jasveen Sangha, who kept a warehouse in North Hollywood ready to serve Perry with ketamine whenever he requested it.

Los Angeles police reported in May that they had opened a criminal investigation into Perry’s death. The arrests made on Thursday are linked to these investigations. Plascencia faces a maximum penalty of up to 120 years in prison, and Sangha faces life in prison for illegally supplying the drug. “If you are in the business of selling dangerous drugs, we will hold you accountable for the deaths that you cause,” said Estrada at the press conference.

Multiple law enforcement agencies conducted searches, seizing computers, phones and other devices in an attempt to establish who was responsible for giving Perry the dose of ketamine that ended his life. At the time of his death, the amount of ketamine in Perry’s system was in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.

The actor was floating face down in the pool of his home in the exclusive Pacific Palisades neighborhood by Kenneth Iwamasa, on October 28, 2023. He had been receiving ketamine infusion therapy for anxiety and depression. But he received his treatment was a week and a half before his death, so the ketamine found in his system in the autopsy was not prescribed by a doctor. Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office said that Perry died of “acute effects of ketamine.” “Contributing factors in 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 accident,” the medical examiner noted.

Last May, the Los Angeles police confirmed that a criminal investigation was underway to determine the origin of the ketamine that took Perry’s life. The investigation — which also involved the DEA, the U.S. federal anti-drug agency — was aimed at shedding light on how the actor got hold of the substance. Although his death was first considered an accident, the Los Angeles police and the DEA began to investigate how he came to have so much of the drug in his system and in his possession. The police investigation was also conducted with the help of the postal service, which helped trace the ketamine’s path to the actor’s hands.

According to the actor’s confessional memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (2022), while he was part of the cast of Friends — a series that lasted 10 seasons between 1994 and 2004 — he suffered several episodes of drug and alcohol addiction. His death shocked Friends fans and his co-stars; Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition