The doctor who sold Matthew Perry 20 vials of liquid ketamine and taught Perry’s assistant how to inject it just weeks before the Friends actor overdosed in a hot tub was sentenced today to 30 months in prison at an emotional sentencing hearing attended by Perry’s family.
“I failed Matthew Perry,” Dr. Salvador Plasencia said in an address to the court, before he was remanded into custody. “I should have protected him…. I’m just so sorry.”
U.S. District Court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett went above the guidelines range of eight to 14 months in prison, finding that Plasencia “abused his position of trust.” She said while the doctor didn’t supply the exact batch of ketamine that ultimately killed Perry on Oct. 28, 2023, it wasn’t for lack of trying. She noted that a day before Perry died, Plasencia sent Perry’s personal assistant a text that read: “I know you mentioned taking a break. I have been stocking up.” She said Plasencia’s claim that he wanted to help Perry with depression didn’t “ring true.”
“You exploited Mr. Perry’s addiction for your own profit, to the tune of $55,000,” the judge said before issuing the sentence, which also included a fine of $5,600 and two years of supervised release. “You and others helped Mr. Perry stay on the road to such an ending by feeding his ketamine addiction.”
Plasencia pleaded guilty in July to four counts of distribution of ketamine. He admitted he also falsified treatment records to cover his tracks amid the federal investigation. The charges carried the possibility of up to 40 years in prison. Prosecutors had asked for three years imprisonment. Plasencia asked for no additional time behind bars, saying he voluntarily surrendered his medical license — leading to the loss of his clinic and livelihood — and that his wife and son moved to Arizona for safety amid the “backlash” over Perry’s death.
Perry’s mother, stepmother, and two sisters took turns standing at a podium to address the doctor today. He faced them from his seat at the defense table and listened. Perry’s mom, Suzanne Morrison, said she wasn’t sure she wanted to get up, but she decided to speak so he would see her.
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“There has been a terrible hole cut into our family,” she said. “You took an oath that doctors take. It’s old, it has worked for a long time, but it gets abused every now and then. You pushed it aside.” She described her son as “one of the strongest men I have ever known,” recalling how he survived serious health issues, including a burst colon. “I used to think he couldn’t die, that he wasn’t supposed to die. He would rise out of the most critical situations,” she said. Perry relied on doctors to uphold their Hippocratic Oaths to do no harm, she said, and Plasencia violated that oath.
She then referenced the texts that Plasencia sent to his mentor, Dr. Mark Chavez, the day he met Perry to sell him ketamine for the first time. “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Let’s find out,” the texts from Sept. 30, 2024, read.
“This is my boy. I knew how addicted he was, year after year. And he survived it all just to be called a moron? There was nothing moronic about that man. He even knew how to be a successful drug addict,” she said. “I want you to see, this is the mother, because I heard you have a child and want to keep your family together. I want you to see, this is the mother. I’m sorry I had to meet you under these circumstances, but this was a bad thing you did.”
Perry’s sister from his father’s second marriage said Plasencia “directly contributed” to her brother’s death. “You knew Matthew’s illness left him unable to make proper decisions for himself. You knew how vulnerable he was but continued giving him exorbitant amounts of ketamine,” Maria Perry said. “You snuffed out one of the most brilliant light sources we had. I feel desperately alone and frightened.”
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Perry’s youngest sister, Madeline Morrison, broke down in tears as she spoke. “I’m protective to a fault, and it kills me that I couldn’t protect my brother in the end. My brother’s death flipped my world upside down and punched a crater in our lives,” she said. “You used my brother’s lifelong struggle with addiction for a payday.”
In recent court filings, Plasencia’s lawyers admitted he “turned a blind eye” to Perry’s “clear signs of addiction and relapse.” They said that over 13 days, from the end of September into mid-October 2023, Plasencia treated Perry “without adequate knowledge of ketamine therapy and without a full understanding of his patient’s addiction. It was reckless. And it was the biggest mistake of his life.” In his plea agreement, Plasencia admitted he personally injected Perry with liquid ketamine multiple times in the weeks before his death, including once in a car parked outside the Long Beach Aquarium. He admitted he sold Perry vials of the dissociative anesthetic for home use “without a legitimate medical purpose.”
“Mr. Plasencia accepts the court’s sentence today with humility and deep remorse,” his defense lawyers, Karen L. Goldstein and Debra S. White, said in a statement after the hearing today. “He was a good doctor loved by those he treated. He is not a villain. He is someone who made serious mistakes in his treatment decisions involving the off-label use of ketamine — a drug commonly used for depression that does not have uniform standards. The mistakes he made over the 13 days during which he treated Mr. Perry will stay with him forever.”
One of five people now convicted of crimes connected to Perry’s death, Plasencia was arrested last year alongside Jasveen Sangha, the woman described by prosecutors as the “Ketamine Queen” of North Hollywood. Sangha pleaded guilty to her own charges in September and is due to be sentenced Wednesday.
As part of Plasencia’s deal, prosecutors agreed the ketamine in Perry’s system when the 54-year-old actor died was not sold by Plasencia. They said Sangha sold 25 vials of liquid ketamine to Perry on Oct. 14, 2023, and another 25 vials 10 days later. On the day Perry died, his live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, gave the actor three injections of the ketamine supplied by Sangha, they said. (An autopsy determined Perry died at his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles from the acute effects of ketamine.)
When federal officials first unsealed their 18-count indictment last year, they identified Plasencia and Sangha as the “lead defendants.” They said Iwamasa, Chavez, and Erik Fleming — a local man who allegedly acted as a go-between for Sangha in ketamine sales to Perry — already had agreed to plea deals in the case.
Officials said Perry “became addicted” to intravenous ketamine while seeking treatment for depression and anxiety at a local clinic in fall 2023. They said Perry turned to the four suppliers charged in the case when the clinic refused to increase his dosage.
According to prosecutors, Plasencia and Chavez distributed 20 vials of liquid ketamine to Perry in exchange for $55,000 cash in the last few weeks of the actor’s life. The doctors charged Perry $2,000 for a single vial that cost Chavez approximately $12, officials said.
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Dr. Chavez is due to be sentenced on Dec. 17. Fleming has his sentencing scheduled for Jan. 7, while Iwamasa has his sentencing set for Jan. 14.
Addressing the court today, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello said while Plasencia didn’t supply the ketamine that resulted in Perry’s death, he provided the “guidance and training,” as well as the syringes, that enabled Iwamasa to inject Perry the day he died. “It wasn’t medical treatment, it was drug dealing,” Yanniello said of Plasencia’s role. “He was a drug dealer in a white coat.”
