California doctor who was among five people charged in the overdose death of Friends star Matthew Perry is expected to plead guilty to charges of illegal ketamine distribution, according to Reuters.
Dr Mark Chavez signed an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, a short-term anaesthetic with hallucinogenic properties. He is due to appear in the US District Court in Los Angeles at 10:00 a.m. local time (5:00 p.m. GMT) to enter a guilty plea. He could face up to 10 years in prison at sentencing.
The other doctor charged in the case, Dr Salvador Plasencia, pleaded not guilty, as did co-defendant Jasveen Sangha. According to authorities, she was an illegal supplier of the drug and was known as the “ketamine queen.”
Perry’s personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who admitted to injecting Perry, and the alleged middleman, who said he received the ketamine from Sangha, had already pleaded guilty to the charges against them. Authorities stated that Plasencia purchased the ketamine from Chavez.
Matthew Perry died at age 54 in October 2023 from “acute effects” of ketamine and other factors that caused him to lose consciousness and drown in a hot tub, according to a December 2023 autopsy report.
The actor has publicly acknowledged decades of drug abuse, including during the years he starred as Chandler Bing in the popular 1990s TV sitcom Friends.
