by Matthew Perry’s assistant allegedly injected him with ketamine more than 20 times in the four days before he died, according to California prosecutors who have charged five people in connection with his death.
Two doctors, acquaintances and a woman known as the “ketamine queen” are among those accused of supplying the actor with ketamine in September and October last year.
One doctor named in an indictment filed Wednesday said in a text message that he was “surprised[d] how much will this moron pay” for the drugs.
Some were allegedly involved in the distribution of drugs referred to as vials of ketamine using code words such as “Dr Pepper”, “cans” and “robots”, prosecutors said.
Salvador Plasencia, a doctor at an urgent care center, and Jasveen Sangha, a woman prosecutors said was the “ketamine queen,” were arrested Thursday and charged with supplying drugs to Perry, who was found dead at the age of 54 at her LA . home last year.
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A grand jury indictment unsealed Thursday said the two worked to obtain ketamine despite knowing he had a history of drug abuse.
Prosecutors named Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, an acquaintance named Erik Fleming and another doctor, Mark Chavez, as co-conspirators in an “underground criminal network responsible for distributing [a] large amount of ketamine to Perry and others”.
US attorney Martin Estrada said at a press briefing on Thursday that the defendants “took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues,” adding: “They knew what they were doing was wrong.”
In a 34-page court filing unsealed Thursday, prosecutors described how the co-conspirators communicated with each other to obtain and administer ketamine to Perry.
In September last year, Mr Iwamasa contacted Dr Plasencia, a registered doctor, with the hope of buying ketamine.
In the weeks that followed, prosecutors said the doctor trained Mr. Iwamasa to inject his boss with the drug and provided syringes to do so.
He is later accused of purchasing the ketamine from Dr. Chavez, another medical doctor, who allegedly bought it from a wholesaler by making fraudulent statements about how he would use the drug.
In one text message, Dr. Plasencia described Perry’s meeting with Dr. Chavez as “like a bad movie,” the court filing said.
On October 10, Dr. Plasencia is accused of meeting Perry in a parking lot in Long Beach, California, and injecting him with ketamine inside the car.
In the following weeks, the two arranged for Mr. Iwamasa to buy more ketamine, which was administered first by Dr. Plasencia himself, and then by the assistant.
On one occasion, Dr. Plasencia allegedly injected Perry with enough ketamine to “freeze” him and cause his blood pressure to “significantly spike,” prosecutors said.
Over the same period, Mr Iwamasa is alleged to have bought ketamine from Mr Fleming, an associate who obtained it from Ms Sangha, the “Queen of Ketamine” who is accused of acting as a drug dealer for Hollywood’s rich and famous.
Prosecutors said Mr Fleming told Mr Iwamasa that the ketamine was “great stuff” and that it was “just for Ms Sangha”.[s] with high end and celebs”.
On October 14, Mr Iwamasa allegedly bought 25 vials of ketamine from Mr Fleming for $5,500 (£4,275).
Ten days later, he is accused of buying another 25 vials, including Perry’s fatal dose.
Between October 25 and October 27, he allegedly injected Perry with six doses of ketamine each day, followed by three more doses on October 28.
Later that day, Perry was found dead, face down in his hot tub. The coroner’s report following Perry’s death found that he had a high dose of ketamine in his system at the time of his death, which ruled an accident.
On the same day, the court filing shows Sangha instructed Mr Fleming: “Delete all our messages.”
Ms Sangha was charged earlier this year with possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Police raided her home in March and found 79 bottles of ketamine and nearly 2,000 methamphetamine pills. She pleaded not guilty.
Authorities said drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid use disorder, were among the factors that contributed to Perry’s death.
The actor, best known for his role as Chandler Bing in the American sitcom, was open about his struggles with alcohol and substance abuse before his death, although he said he had stopped using drugs.
The medical examiner’s report after his death found high levels of ketamine in his body, equivalent to what would be used for anesthesia.
Perry was undergoing ketamine infusion treatment for depression, but the amount of the drug in his body at the time of his death could not be attributed to the treatment alone, the examiner said.
In his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry wrote extensively about his struggles with addiction, including during his time filming the hit sitcom.
He said he took ketamine as part of treatment for his mental health conditions in a Swiss clinic.
“Ketamine was a very popular street drug in the 1980s. There is now a synthetic form of it, and it is used for two reasons: to relieve pain and to help with depression,” he wrote.
He said his addiction began in 1997, three years after Friends first aired, when he was prescribed the drug Vicodin to deal with the pain caused by a jet skiing accident.
During part of the series, he was taking 55 pills a day and said he thought his hangovers affected his performance on the show.
“One time, in a scene in the coffee house while I was dressed in a suit, I fell asleep right there on the couch, and disaster was only averted when Matt LeBlanc woke me up right before my line,” wrote he. “Nobody noticed, but I knew how close I could get.”
His death prompted an outpouring of grief from his co-stars, including Jennifer Aniston, who played Rachel Green.
“He was happy. He was healthy. He quit smoking,” she said in December. “I was literally texting him that morning, funny Matty. He was not in pain. He didn’t struggle. He was happy.”
Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay, said that she had started watching the show again in honor of her friend’s death.
