Doctor jailed for selling ketamine to Matthew Perry
A California-based doctor has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for his role in the death of Friends star Matthew Perry.
The sentencing came after Dr Salvador Plasencia previously pled guilty to supplying ketamine to Perry in the month leading up to his death in October 2023.
On October 28th, 2023, Perry was found dead in his hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home by his assistant. Following a postmortem, it was ruled that ketamine was the main cause of his death.
In May 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department opened its investigation into Perry’s cause of death, seeking to find out how the actor gained access to the elevated levels of ketamine in his bloodstream, far higher than the infusion therapy he’d been using as a treatment for depression. This then resulted in five individuals being charged, including Plasencia, who is the first to be sentenced.
During the sentencing hearing at Los Angeles federal court on December 3rd, Plasencia apologised to Perry’s family, telling them to their faces: “I am just so sorry.”
The doctor also told the hearing, “I failed to protect a mother’s son. I failed Mr Perry, I failed his family and I failed myself.”
In addition to receiving a 30-month prison sentence, Plasencia has also been fined more than $5,000 for his role in Perry’s death.
US District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett condemned Plasencia for breaking the Hippocratic oath, but explained that the decision regarding the sentence would not be dictated by “public opinion” due to the high-profile nature of the case.
“It does not feel like a caring doctor/patient relationship; it feels like selling drugs for profit,” the judge added. “You took an oath to do no harm, but you did harm.”
Garnett continued, “You exploited Mr Perry’s addiction for your own profit, to the tune of $55,000. You and others helped Mr Perry to stay on the road to such an ending by helping to feed his ketamine addiction.”
At the hearing, Perry’s mother, Suzanne Perry, described her late son as “one of the strongest men”, and said of his addiction troubles while attacking Placensia for calling him a “moron” in a text message, stating, “This is my boy. I knew how addicted he was year after year. But he survived it all only to be handed stuff and called a moron. There was nothing moronic about him.”
In the aftermath of Perry’s death, his family have established The Matthew Perry Foundation, which aims to tackle addiction.
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