A California doctor agreed to plead guilty Monday to illegally supplying ketamine to “Friends” star Matthew Perry before his accidental overdose death.
Under the agreement, Dr. Salvador Plasencia will plead guilty to four counts of distributing ketamine.
He faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of at least $2 million, the agreement shows.
Plasencia is expected to enter the plea in court in the coming weeks.
He was indicted last year on charges of distributing and conspiracy to distribute ketamine and falsifying records.
One of Plasencia’s co-defendants, dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” by federal prosecutors, was not included in the agreement. Three others who were charged in the scheme, including Perry’s live-in personal assistant, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Before he died on Oct. 28, 2023, Perry, 54, had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety. But federal prosecutors said he had sought — and received — unsupervised doses and developed an “out of control” dependence on the drug.
The anesthetic, long used for surgery and in emergency room settings, has more recently been used as an experimental treatment for some mental illnesses.
When Perry was found dead in his pool, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office said the amount of ketamine found in his body was equivalent to the amount used in general anesthesia.
Prosecutors said Perry paid $55,000 for six to eight shots of ketamine per day in the roughly one month that Plasencia and the others sold it to him.
A text message included in the indictment shows Plasencia and another doctor who pleaded guilty in the scheme, Mark Chavez, discussing how much they should charge Perry.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” one of the messages said. “Lets find out.”
