Second doctor in Matthew Perry overdose case sentenced to home confinement
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Mark Chavez was sentenced to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying Friends star Matthew Perry with ketamine.
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- Dr. Mark Chavez was sentenced to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying ketamine, contributing to Matthew Perry's fatal overdose.
- Chavez admitted selling ketamine to Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who supplied it to Perry. Plasencia was already sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
- Three others face sentencing for their roles in Perry's death, including the supplier of the fatal dose and Perry's personal assistant.
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LOS ANGELES - A second California doctor was sentenced on Dec 16 to eight months of home confinement for illegally supplying Friends star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor’s fatal drug overdose in a hot tub in 2023.
Mark Chavez, 55, a onetime San Diego-based physician,
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service.
As part of his plea agreement, Chavez admitted to selling ketamine to another physician, Salvador Plasencia, 44, who in turn supplied the drug to Perry, though not the dose that ultimately killed the performer.
Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful drug distribution, was sentenced earlier this month to two and a half years behind bars.
He and Chavez were the first two of five people convicted in connection with Perry's ketamine-induced death to be sent off to prison.
The three others scheduled to be sentenced in the coming weeks - Jasveen Sangha, 42, a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen”;
Sangha admitted to supplying the ketamine dose that killed Perry, and Iwamasa acknowledged injecting Perry with it. It was Iwamasa who later found Perry, aged 54, face down and lifeless, in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on Oct 28, 2023.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the acute effects of ketamine, which combined with other factors in causing him to lose consciousness and drown.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series Friends.
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
When doctors there refused to increase his dosage, he turned to unscrupulous providers elsewhere willing to exploit Perry’s drug dependency as a way to make quick money, authorities said.
Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders. It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug. REUTERS
