Dr. Salvador Plasencia, a physician charged in connection with Matthew Perry’s death, has agreed to plead guilty to providing the actor with ketamine, according to a plea deal submitted on Monday.
Plasencia was charged with four counts of distribution of ketamine, which carries a statutory maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison. He has not yet pleaded guilty, but is expected to do so in the coming weeks, according to authorities.
The physician, also known as Dr. P, is one of the five people charged in the accidental overdose death of “Friends” actor. He was listed as a physician at Malibu Canyon Urgent Care.
Perry was found unresponsive in the hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home in October 2023. The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner determined he died from “acute effects of ketamine.”
The report also found that contributing factors in Perry’s death included “drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine effects.” The manner of the death was listed as accidental (drug and drowning-related), and there were no signs of foul play, investigators previously said.
Court documents allege that in September and October of 2023, Plasencia distributed the ketamine to Perry and his assistant “outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose on at least seven occasions.”
He did so by teaching Kenneth Iwamasa, who was Perry’s live-in personal assistant, how to inject Perry with ketamine, selling ketamine to Iwamasa to inject into Perry, leaving vials of ketamine with Iwamasa for self-administration, personally injecting ketamine into Perry without the proper safety equipment – including once inside a car parked in a Long Beach parking lot – and failing to properly monitor Perry after Plasencia injected Perry with the drug, officials allege.
Plasencia knew that Iwamasa had never received medical training and knew little, if anything, about administering or treating patients with controlled substances, the indictment explained.
The indictment states that Plasencia sold the ketamine to Perry, despite being told a week earlier that the actor’s ketamine addiction was “spiraling out of control.”
Three other defendants pleaded guilty last year in connection with Perry’s death: Dr. Mark Chavez; Kenneth Iwamasa, who was Perry’s live-in personal assistant; and alleged drug dealer Erik Fleming, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The fifth defendant, Jasveen Sangha, also known as the “Ketamine Queen,” has pleaded not guilty.
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