“Friends” actor Matthew Perry suffered from an uncontrollable addiction to ketamine, injecting himself with the drug six to eight times a day before his accidental overdose death, prosecutors said.
Five people have been charged in connection with Perry’s death, including the actor’s personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, and one of the people accused of supplying the drug, Dr. Salvador Plasencia.
In court documents filed Thursday, federal prosecutors accuse Plasencia of telling a patient that Perry was “too far gone and spiraling into addiction” the week before his death, but that the doctor still offered to sell him ketamine through Iwamasa.
Perry was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety, but it wasn’t the controlled doses that killed him. His last session was more than a week before he died.
Prosecutors say Perry sought unsupervised doses of the controlled substance and developed an “uncontrollable” addiction. Ketamine, an anesthetic with psychedelic properties, is a popular party drug that has recently emerged as a promising alternative treatment for some mental illnesses, but it carries serious medical risks.
Perry, 54, was found face down in the heated end of a swimming pool at his Pacific Palisades home on Oct. 28, 2023. When he died, the levels of ketamine in his body were high — equivalent to the amount used for general anesthesia during surgery, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office.
The actor’s assistant, Iwamasa, 59, pleaded guilty on Aug. 7 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death and admitted to repeatedly injecting Perry without medical training, prosecutors said.
Court documents establishing Iwamasa’s plea deal detail the depths of Perry’s addiction.
Iwamasa allegedly injected Perry at 8:30 a.m. on the day of his death and then again at 12:45 p.m. while Perry was watching a movie, according to the agreement.
“Approximately 40 minutes later, Victim MP asked Defendant to prepare the hot tub for Victim MP and told Defendant, ‘shoot me with a big dose,’ referring to another dose of ketamine,” the document states.
After giving Perry his third dose in six hours, Iwamasa went to run errands, the documents say. He found Perry face down in the hot tub when he returned to the actor’s home, according to the plea agreement.
Iwamasa told authorities that he began injecting Perry with ketamine about a month before his death, after the actor was introduced to Plasencia around Sept. 30, 2023. He alleged that Plasencia sold Perry liquid ketamine as well as ketamine pellets, according to court documents.
On October 28, news broke that Matthew Perry was found dead in his home at the age of 54. While the TV star’s life was filled with friends and laughter, Perry also spoke openly about his decades-long struggle with addiction, and his greatest wish was to be recognized for the ways he helped others facing similar challenges. Access Hollywood shares what we know about his passing so far and reflects on his incredible legacy, including his acting chops in film and television, his strong friendships in Hollywood, and his candidness about his journey through addiction and sobriety.
Plasencia, 42, was arrested Thursday in Southern California and charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine. He pleaded not guilty in court Thursday afternoon. Plasencia’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
According to federal prosecutors, Plasencia allegedly taught Iwamasa how to administer the drug through intramuscular injection, even though the personal assistant had no medical experience or training.
Perry then asked Iwamasa to stay in touch with Plasencia to purchase more vials. The plea agreement details near-daily communications between the doctor and his personal assistant to arrange new purchases over the next two weeks.
On Oct. 12, 2023, about two weeks before Perry died, the actor received a ketamine infusion from a doctor, but Plasencia was still contacted after the treatment to receive more, prosecutors said. Plasencia allegedly agreed to meet Perry at the home later that day and administered a “high dose of ketamine” to the actor, according to the plea agreement document.
Perry had a bad reaction to that dose, prosecutors said. His blood pressure spiked, his body began to “freeze up” and he couldn’t speak or move, prosecutors said. Plasencia allegedly left extra vials of ketamine for Perry at home, despite Perry’s adverse reaction to the drug.
The next day, prosecutors say, Perry asked Iwamasa to get more ketamine from another supplier, an acquaintance the assistant had previously contacted named Erik Fleming.
Fleming, 54, pleaded guilty on Aug. 8 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
Perry paid Plasencia, through his assistant, at least $55,000 for ketamine in the month before his death, according to Iwamasa’s plea agreement. Fleming received about $12,000 in two separate transactions, including one just days before Perry died.
Another doctor was arrested and charged Thursday, and a third person has agreed to plead guilty in connection with the actor’s death.
Perry, who rose to fame on the hit TV series Friends, spoke openly about his struggles with addiction in the weeks before his death. He said in a 2022 interview on the podcast Q with Tom Power that he couldn’t watch Friends because he could tell by his weight what substance he was abusing: alcohol, opiates or cocaine.
Perry wrote in his memoir that he “should be dead” after years of addiction and that his sobriety gave him a sense of purpose.
In 2013, Perry received the Champion of Recovery Award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. That same year, he converted his Malibu residence into a retirement home that operated for two years.
“I’ve said this for a long time: When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing people talk about,” Perry said the year before his death. “I want [helping people] be the first thing that is mentioned. And I will spend the rest of my life proving it.
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