5 charged in Friends star Matthew Perry’s death, including his assistant and 2 doctors
- The defendants, including LA’s ‘Ketamine Queen’, allegedly supplied Perry with large quantities of the powerful drug that led to his death
Two doctors and three others including a personal assistant to Matthew Perry were charged on Thursday with supplying the Friends star with large quantities of ketamine, the powerful sedative that led to his death nearly a year ago, authorities said.
The defendants, including a woman known in Los Angeles as the “Ketamine Queen”, were part of “a broad underground criminal network” that distributed the drug to the actor and others, US Attorney Martin Estrada said.
“These defendants took advantage of Mr Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves,” Estrada said at a news conference in Los Angeles.
Each defendant played a role in falsely prescribing, selling or injecting the ketamine that contributed to the actor’s death, Anne Milgram, administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, said.
Two of the people have been arrested and were expected to be arraigned later on Thursday. They were Jasveen Sangha, 41, of North Hollywood and Salvador Plasencia, 42, of Santa Monica.
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Perry died at age 54 from “acute effects” of ketamine and other factors that caused him to lose consciousness and drown in his hot tub last October, an autopsy said. For months, Los Angeles homicide detectives and federal agents have been investigating how Perry obtained the prescription drug.