Doctor who sold Matthew Perry ketamine sentenced to 2.5 years
Dr. Salvador Plasencia, the doctor who supplied ketamine to Matthew Perry before his overdose in 2023, has been sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.
Matthew Perry’s stepmother explained how the family has suffered an “irreversible” pain from the “Friends” actor’s 2023 death.
The day before Jasveen Sangha, the so-called “Ketamine Queen” who pleaded guilty in the U.S. Department of Justice’s criminal case for Perry’s death, was set to be sentenced, prosecutors filed a victim impact statement from Debbie Perry. The filing, obtained by USA TODAY, was submitted in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on April 7.
“The pain you’ve caused to hundreds maybe thousands is irreversible. There is no joy to be found, no light in the window,” Debbie Perry, who is married to Matthew Perry’s father, John Bennett Perry, wrote. “They won’t be back. That thought comes through our day everyday.”
She described that there is “no escape” from these feelings and leveled an accusation against Sangha.
“You caused this,” Debbie Perry said. “You who has talent for business, enough to make money, chose the one way that hurts people. How sad for you. How will you ever find joy – have you ever found joy? How sad for us all. We miss him.”
Debbie Perry ended her letter, styled like a poem, by asking the court to hand out a maximum prison sentence so that Sangha “won’t be able to hurt other families like ours.”
In a sentencing memorandum filed March 25 and obtained by USA TODAY, Sangha’s lawyers wrote that she “accepted responsibility for serious criminal conduct. She does not minimize that conduct or the gravity of the consequences charged in the case.” They requested “a sentence of time served, followed by appropriate conditions of supervised release.”
Matthew Perry, 54, was found unresponsive and face down in the “heated end” of his pool on Oct. 28, according to an autopsy. The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to USA TODAY that firefighters responded to Matthew Perry’s Southern California home at 4:07 p.m. that day and found “an adult male unconscious in a stand-alone jacuzzi.”
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office later ruled Perry’s death an accident, with the cause being “the acute effects of ketamine.” Contributing factors were drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine.
Buprenorphine is “an opioid-like drug used in the treatment of opioid addiction as well as acute and chronic pain,” according to a 29-page autopsy report obtained by USA TODAY.
What happened to the people charged in Matthew Perry’s death
Sangha was one of five people charged in Matthew Perry’s death. According to her plea agreement, which was signed Aug. 14, she agreed to plead guilty to five charges: one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises; three counts of distribution of ketamine; and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.
Each defendant entered a guilty plea; Dr. Salvador Plasencia was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison; Dr. Mark Chavez pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to distribute the dissociative anesthetic drug ketamine and was sentenced to eight months of home confinement. Film producer Erik Fleming and Perry’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, have yet to be sentenced.
Fleming admitted to distributing Sangha’s ketamine that killed Perry and pleaded guilty in August 2024 to conspiracy to distribute ketamine and distribution of ketamine resulting in death. Iwamasa agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Sangha’s sentencing hearing is set for Wednesday, April 8, in Los Angeles.