Central District of California | Five Defendants, Including Two Doctors, Charged in Connection with Actor Matthew Perry’s Fatal Drug Overdose Last Year

LOS ANGELES – A licensed doctor and an alleged San Fernando Valley drug vendor have been arrested at present in reference to the loss of life of actor Matthew Perry, who suffered a deadly ketamine overdose in October 2023.

In complete, 5 defendants, together with two docs, have been charged on this matter, in accordance with court docket paperwork unsealed at present.

The defendants arrested at present are charged in an 18-count superseding indictment returned on Wednesday with distributing ketamine to Perry through the remaining weeks of the actor’s life:

• Jasveen Sangha, 41, a.okay.a. “The Ketamine Queen,” of North Hollywood; and
• Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 42, a.okay.a. “Dr. P,” of Santa Monica.

Sangha and Plasencia are charged with one rely of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Sangha is also charged with one rely of sustaining a drug-involved premises, one rely of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one rely of possession with intent to distribute ketamine, and 5 counts of distribution of ketamine.

The superseding indictment alleges that Sangha’s distribution of ketamine on October 24, 2023, prompted Perry’s loss of life. Plasencia is charged with seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying paperwork or data associated to the federal investigation.

Sangha and Plasencia are anticipated to be arraigned later at present at United States District Court docket in downtown Los Angeles.

“These defendants cared extra about profiting off of Mr. Perry than caring for his well-being,” stated United States Legal professional Martin Estrada. “Drug sellers promoting harmful substances are playing with different individuals’s lives over greed. This case, together with our many different prosecutions of drug-dealers who trigger loss of life, ship a transparent message that we are going to maintain drug-dealers accountable for the deaths they trigger.”

“Bringing these people to justice for his or her function within the premature loss of life of Mr. Perry required coordination and exhausting work by a variety of individuals, and I need to thank LAPD detectives and our federal companions for his or her endurance and dedication,” stated LAPD Chief Dominic Choi. “Because the boots on the bottom in our communities, each day LAPD officers witness first-hand the hurt that these narcotics could cause, so I’m happy that our collective efforts have led to the arrest of those people.”

“Right this moment we announce prices introduced towards the 5 people who, collectively, are chargeable for the loss of life of Matthew Perry,” stated DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “We allege every of the defendants performed a key function in his loss of life by falsely prescribing, promoting, or injecting the ketamine that prompted Matthew Perry’s tragic loss of life. Matthew Perry’s journey started with unscrupulous docs 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. On daily basis, the DEA works tirelessly with our federal, state, and native companions to guard the general public and to carry accountable people who distribute lethal and harmful medicine – whether or not they’re native drug traffickers or docs who violate their sworn oath to take care of sufferers.”

The three different defendants – charged individually – are:

• Erik Fleming, 54, of Hawthorne, who pleaded responsible on August 8 to at least one rely of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one rely of distribution of ketamine leading to loss of life. Fleming admitted in court docket paperwork that he distributed the ketamine that killed Perry. He additional admitted to acquiring the ketamine from his supply, Sangha, and to distributing 50 vials of ketamine to Perry’s live-in private assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa – half of them 4 days earlier than Perry’s loss of life.
• Kenneth Iwamasa, 59, of Toluca Lake, who conspired with Sangha, Fleming, and Plasencia to illegally acquire ketamine and distribute it to Perry. Iwamasa, who pleaded responsible on August 7 to at least one rely of conspiracy to distribute ketamine inflicting loss of life, admitted to repeatedly injecting Perry with ketamine with out medical coaching, together with performing a number of injections on Perry on October 28, 2023 – the day Perry died.
• Dr. Mark Chavez, 54, of San Diego, a doctor who has agreed to plead responsible to at least one rely of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Chavez admitted in his plea settlement to promoting ketamine to Plasencia, together with ketamine that he had diverted from his former ketamine clinic. Chavez additionally obtained further ketamine to switch to Plasencia by making false representations to a wholesale ketamine distributor and by submitting a fraudulent prescription within the title of a former affected person with out that affected person’s information or consent.

In keeping with the superseding indictment unsealed at present, in late September 2023, Plasencia discovered that Perry, a profitable actor whose historical past of drug dependancy was properly documented, was considering acquiring ketamine. Ketamine is a basic anesthetic whose medical dangers require a well being care skilled to watch a affected person who had simply been given the drug.

After studying about Perry’s curiosity in ketamine, Plasencia contacted Chavez – who beforehand operated a ketamine clinic – to acquire ketamine to promote to Perry. In textual content messages to Chavez, Plasencia mentioned how a lot to cost Perry for the ketamine, stating, “I’m wondering how a lot this moron can pay” and “Lets [sic] discover out.”

Throughout September and October of 2023, Plasencia distributed ketamine to Perry and Iwamasa exterior the standard course {of professional} follow and with no legit medical goal on not less than seven events. He did so by educating Iwamasa how one can inject Perry with ketamine, promoting ketamine to Iwamasa to inject into Perry, leaving vials of ketamine with Iwamasa for self-administration, personally injecting ketamine into Perry with out the right security tools – together with as soon as inside a automobile parked in a Lengthy Seaside parking zone – and failing to correctly monitor Perry after Plasencia injected Perry with the drug. Plasencia knew that Iwamasa had by no means obtained medical coaching and knew little, if something, about administering or treating sufferers with managed substances.

The superseding indictment additionally alleges that Plasencia conspired with Chavez about stock, value, and availability of ketamine to promote to Perry and Iwamasa. Chavez, in flip, offered Plasencia orally administered ketamine lozenges that he obtained after writing a fraudulent prescription in a affected person’s title with out her information or consent, and lied to wholesale ketamine distributors to purchase further vials of liquid ketamine that Chavez meant to promote to Plasencia for distribution to Perry.

Starting in mid-October 2023, Iwamasa additionally started acquiring ketamine for Perry from Fleming and Sangha. After discussing costs with Iwamasa, Fleming coordinated the drug gross sales with Sangha, and introduced money from Iwamasa to Sangha’s stash home in North Hollywood to purchase vials of ketamine. On October 24, 2023, whereas ready for Sangha’s ketamine to reach, Fleming suggested Iwamasa that the ketamine was “on its strategy to our woman,” referring to Sangha. Sangha has distributed ketamine and different unlawful medicine from her stash home in North Hollywood since not less than 2019.

Sangha was conscious of the hazard of ketamine: In August 2019, Sangha offered ketamine to sufferer Cody McLaury within the hours earlier than his overdose loss of life. After a member of the family of McLaury’s despatched Sangha a textual content message saying that her ketamine had killed McLaury, Sangha performed a Google seek for “can ketamine be listed as a reason for loss of life[?]” The superseding indictment alleges that Sangha nonetheless continued to promote ketamine from her stash home.

Utilizing the Plasencia-provided directions and syringes, Iwamasa injected Perry with the ketamine that was offered to him by Fleming and Sangha, together with on October 28, 2023, when Perry died at his Pacific Palisades house after receiving a number of ketamine injections. Plasencia offered the ketamine to Iwamasa regardless of being knowledgeable not less than one week earlier that Perry’s ketamine dependancy was spiraling uncontrolled. After Perry’s loss of life was reported within the information, Sangha texted Fleming, “Delete all our messages.”

After Perry’s loss of life, federal brokers and detectives with the Los Angeles Police Division executed search warrants at Sangha’s residence, the place they discovered proof of drug trafficking, together with roughly 79 vials of ketamine, roughly 1.4 kilograms (3.1 kilos) of orange capsules containing methamphetamine, psilocybin mushrooms, cocaine, and prescribed drugs that seemed to be fraudulently obtained.

In February and March of 2024, in response to a authorized request for manufacturing of paperwork in reference to the federal investigation, Plasencia offered altered and falsified medical data, purporting to indicate that he had a legit “remedy plan” in place for Perry, with the intent to affect the investigation into Perry’s loss of life. 

“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s partnership with state and federal legislation enforcement companies and the help of the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace demonstrates our continued dedication to defending communities from the hurt brought on by the illicit distribution and misuse of harmful medicine,” stated Matthew Shields, Performing Inspector in Cost of the Los Angeles Division. “We are going to proceed to work diligently to convey justice to households affected by a lot of these crimes.”

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed harmless till confirmed responsible past an inexpensive doubt in a court docket of legislation.

If convicted of all prices, Sangha would face a compulsory minimal sentence of 10 years in federal jail and a statutory most sentence of life imprisonment. Plasencia would withstand 10 years in federal jail for every ketamine-related rely and as much as 20 years in federal jail for every data falsification rely.

Iwamasa and Fleming will withstand 15 years and 25 years, respectively, when they’re sentenced of their federal circumstances.

Chavez has been charged in an info pursuant to a plea settlement and will probably be arraigned on August 30. At sentencing, Chavez will withstand 10 years in federal jail.

The Los Angeles Police Division, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the USA Postal Inspection Service are investigating this matter.

Assistant United States Attorneys Ian V. Yanniello of the Normal Crimes Part and Haoxiaohan H. Cai of the Main Frauds Part are prosecuting this case.