A doctor who illegally sold Matthew Perry the anesthetic drug ketamine, fueling an addiction that led to the Friends star’s fatal overdose, has been sentenced to 30 months in prison.
U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett delivered the sentence on Wednesday after Salvador Plasencia pleaded guilty to charges related to supplying Perry with 20 vials of ketamine over two weeks in the period directly leading up to Perry’s death, at times traveling to his house to inject him. The former doctor will also serve two years of supervised release and pay a fine of $5,600.
Plasencia, who owned an urgent care clinic in Malibu, California, is one of five people to plead guilty in connection to Perry’s accidental death, which was found to be caused by the acute effects of ketamine, and the first to be sentenced. In 2023, Perry was discovered unresponsive and floating face down in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home after becoming increasingly reliant on the drug.
If convicted at trial, Plasencia faced a potential sentence of up to 40 years in prison. Prosecutors pushed for a three-year sentence. “Rather than do what was best for Mr. Perry — someone who had struggled with addiction for most of his life — defendant sought to exploit Perry’s medical vulnerability for profit,” they wrote in a sentencing memo. The government, which stressed “egregious breaches of trust,” said that Plasencia sold the ketamine despite knowing that Perry’s personal assistant was administering the drug without proper medical oversight and with the understanding that the actor had previously suffered an adverse reaction.
Plasencia asked for three years of supervised release. While his lawyers acknowledged the doctor turning a blind eye to signs of addiction, they argued he played a “more limited and discrete role” in the actor’s death.
“Plasencia is someone who made serious mistakes in his treatment decisions involving the off-label use of ketamine —a drug commonly used for depression that does not have uniform standards,” said Karen Golstein, his lawyer, in a statement. “The mistakes he made over the 13 days during which he treated Mr. Perry will stay with him forever.”
In a victim impact statement submitted to the court ahead of sentencing, Suzanne and Keith Morrison, Perry’s mother and stepfather, said Plasencia is “the most culpable of all” those charged in the death of their son. They added “this doctor conspired to break his most important vows, repeatedly, sneaked through the night to meet his victim in secret.”
Debbie Perry, Perry’s stepmother, wrote “Matthew’s recovery counted on you saying NO.”
Federal prosecutors last year filed a criminal case against Plasencia last year faulting him for the overdose. In one instance in which he administered ketamine to Perry, the actor’s blood pressure spiked. Despite this, Plasencia subsequently nudged Perry’s personal assistant, who was also charged, to order more. “I know you mentioned taking a break,” he wrote in the message, according to court documents. “I have been stocking up on the meanwhile. I am not sure when you guys plan to resume but in case its when im out of town this weekend I have left supplies with a nurse of mine.”
In a text to another defendant charged in the case, Plasencia allegedly wrote, “I wonder how much this moron will pay … Let’s find out.”