A California doctor pleaded guilty Wednesday in a deal with federal prosecutors over the fatal overdose of “Friends” star Matthew Perry last year.
Mark Chavez, 54, appeared before Judge Jean Rosenbluth in a Los Angeles court and pleaded to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry. Even with a plea deal, Chavez faces up to 10 years in prison upon his sentencing, which will take place on April 2, 2025.
Chavez had already surrendered his passport and agreed to no longer practice medicine. He will remain out on bond.
According to an 18-count indictment filed in August, Chavez is one of five individuals charged in connection with Perry’s accidental overdose. The star actor was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home in October 2023.
Chavez, who had operated a ketamine clinic, sold ketamine lozenges to Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 42, who then distributed them to Perry. Plasencia, a Santa Monica-based physician known as “Dr. P,” has pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Plasencia and Chavez, in a series of texts, considered how much to charge Perry for the drugs. “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Lets find out,” they wrote, according to investigators.
Chavez obtained the ketamine after “writing a fraudulent prescription in a patient’s name without her knowledge or consent, and lied to wholesale ketamine distributors to buy additional vials of liquid ketamine that Chavez intended to sell to Plasencia for distribution to Perry,” according to the indictment.
Chavez’s lawyer, Matthew Binninger, has said his client was “incredibly remorseful” and “accepting responsibility” for his patient’s overdose.
The other individuals charged in connection with Perry’s death include the actor’s live-in personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, 60, and Erik Fleming, 54, a friend of Perry’s who authorities described as a “street dealer.” Both have pleaded guilty and await sentencing. Also charged is Jasveen Sangha, 41, an alleged drug dealer known as the “ketamine queen” who has pleaded not guilty.
“We allege each of the defendants played a key role in his death by falsely prescribing, selling or injecting the ketamine that caused Matthew Perry’s tragic death,” Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram said when the charges were announced. The actor’s “journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw him as a payday to street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials,” she said.
Perry had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety, according to a coroner’s report, but the levels of ketamine in his body at the time of his death were dangerously high — about the same amount used for general anesthesia during surgery.
CORRECTION (Oct. 2, 2024, 7:20 p.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misidentified the judge overseeing the hearing. She is Sherilyn Peace Garnett, not Jean Rosenbluth. (NBC)