A California physician pleaded responsible Wednesday in a cope with federal prosecutors over the deadly overdose of “Friends” star Matthew Perry final yr.
Mark Chavez, 54, appeared earlier than Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett in a Los Angeles court docket and pleaded to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry. Even with a plea deal, Chavez faces as much as 10 years in jail upon his sentencing, which can happen on April 2, 2025.
Chavez had already surrendered his passport and agreed to not observe medication. He will stay out on bond.
According to an 18-count indictment filed in August, Chavez is one among 5 people charged in reference to Perry’s unintended overdose. The star actor was discovered lifeless in a sizzling tub at his Los Angeles dwelling in October 2023.
Chavez, who had operated a ketamine clinic, offered ketamine lozenges to Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 42, who then distributed them to Perry. Plasencia, a Santa Monica-based doctor often called “Dr. P,” has pleaded not responsible to at least one rely of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Plasencia and Chavez, in a sequence of texts, thought-about how a lot to cost Perry for the medicine. “I’m wondering how a lot this moron pays” and “Lets discover out,” they wrote, in accordance with investigators.
Chavez obtained the ketamine after “writing a fraudulent prescription in a affected person’s identify with out her data or consent, and lied to wholesale ketamine distributors to purchase further vials of liquid ketamine that Chavez supposed to promote to Plasencia for distribution to Perry,” in accordance with the indictment.
Chavez’s lawyer, Matthew Binninger, has stated his consumer was “extremely remorseful” and “accepting accountability” for his affected person’s overdose.
The different people charged in reference to Perry’s demise embody the actor’s live-in private assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, 60, and Erik Fleming, 54, a buddy of Perry’s who authorities described as a “road vendor.” Both have pleaded responsible and await sentencing. Also charged is Jasveen Sangha, 41, an alleged drug vendor often called the “ketamine queen” who has pleaded not responsible.
“We allege every of the defendants performed a key function in his demise by falsely prescribing, promoting or injecting the ketamine that prompted Matthew Perry’s tragic demise,” Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram stated when the costs had been introduced. The actor’s “journey started with unscrupulous medical doctors who abused their place of belief as a result of they noticed him as a payday to road sellers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials,” she stated.
Perry had been present process ketamine infusion remedy to deal with melancholy and anxiousness, in accordance with a coroner’s report, however the ranges of ketamine in his physique on the time of his demise had been dangerously excessive — about the identical quantity used for normal anesthesia throughout surgical procedure.
CORRECTION (Oct. 2, 2024, 7:20 p.m. ET): An earlier model of this text misidentified the decide overseeing the listening to. She is Sherilyn Peace Garnett, not Jean Rosenbluth.