5 people arrested in Matthew Perry’s death

The unexpected death of actor Matthew Perry, who played the sarcastic Chandler Bing in the popular series Friends, on 28 October at the age of 54 shocked the world. The American performer was found dead in his Los Angeles home after drowning in a hot tub due to an overdose, according to toxicology reports.

Now, prosecutors have arrested five people in connection with Perry’s death including two doctors, the actor’s personal assistant, as well as a woman, better known as the ‘ketamine queen’. The suspects were arrested on Thursday on accusations of being part of a ‘vast underground criminal network’ that supplied the Friends star with the ketamine that killed the actor.

The five are accused of ‘taking advantage of Mr Perry’s addiction problems to enrich themselves,’ the federal prosecutor in charge of the case said. ‘They knew that what they were doing put Mr. Perry in great danger, but they did it anyway.’ One of the doctors said that in the fall of 2023, Perry, who had struggled with addiction in the past, ‘fell back into addiction and these defendants took advantage of it for their own gain.’

His doctor allegedly worked with another doctor to obtain ketamine and with the assistant to distribute that ketamine to Perry. Over two months, they distributed approximately 20 vials of ketamine to Perry in exchange for 50,000 euros in cash. ‘Plasencia saw this as an opportunity to profit from Mr Perry,’ the prosecutor said, noting that the doctor allegedly wrote in text messages saying, ’I wonder how much this idiot will pay.’ The vials cost the doctors 10 euros, but they were selling them to Perry for 1,820 euros each, authorities said.

As a doctor, Plasencia ‘knew the danger of what he was doing’ and ‘nevertheless continued to offer ketamine to Mr. Perry,’ Estrada said. Mr. Plasencia provided ketamine to Perry ‘outside the usual course of professional practice and without a legitimate medical purpose,’ according to the indictment. He also allegedly taught Iwamasa how to inject Perry with ketamine without proper safety procedures or oversight, the police indictment says.

In the four days before his death, Iwamasa gave Perry at least 27 ketamine injections, prosecutors said. He did so even after a large dose of ketamine earlier that month caused Perry to ‘freeze’, leading Plasencia to advise against similar dosing in the future. The doctor still left several vials of the drug with the actor and his assistant after the incident, according to the indictment. Other defendants in the case include the ‘ketamine queen’, who supplied the drug to Plasencia with the help of two other co-defendants, Erik Fleming and Dr Mark Chavez.

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