According to The Hollywood Reporter, five people have been indicted and charged in the investigation regarding Matthew Perry’s (Misery Loves Comedy, Friends) death. Those involved include his assistant and two doctors, one of which is referred to by prosecutors as “the ketamine queen.”
The two allegedly involved doctors are Jasveen Sangha, the aforementioned “ketamine queen” and Salvador Plasencia. Sangha allegedly maintains an illegal drug “stash house” in Hollywood where law enforcement discovered thousands of dollars worth of illegal drugs, according to a superseding indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The two doctors are charged with the alleged distribution of ketamine resulting in death, conspiracy to distribute ketamine, altering and falsifying records related to a federal investigation, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine and others.
According to THR, Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, a friend of Perry’s, Erick Fleming and doctor Mark Chavez have all accepted lower charges. Chavez and Plasencia would allegedly obtain ketamine, and Iwamasa would allegedly inject the ketamine for Perry. According to authorities, Perry allegedly received 20 vials for $55,000 from September 2023 to his death on October 28, 2023.
On October 28, 2023, Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home, reported to have drowned in his hot tub.
“These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong,” U.S. attorney Martin Estrada said at a Thursday press conference via THR. “They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry, but they did it anyway. In the end, these defendants were more interested in profiting.”
Perry had been open about a decades-long struggle with addiction, The Hollywood Reporter details. Of ketamine treatment, he wrote in his 2022 memoir, “Taking [Ketamine] is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel. But the hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel. Ketamine was not for me.”