U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, announcing the charges on Thursday, said the doctors exploited Perry’s history of addiction in the final months of his life last year to supply him with ketamine in quantities they knew were dangerous.
“They realized what they were doing was wrong, they realized what they were doing was putting Mr. Perry at great risk, but they did it anyway,” Estrada said.
One doctor even texted, “I wonder how much this idiot will pay” and “Let’s find out,” according to the indictment unsealed Thursday.
Perry died in October of an overdose of ketamine, and prosecutors said he received multiple injections the day he died from his live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who found Perry dead later that day and was the first to speak to investigators.
Ketamine has seen a huge increase in use in recent years as a treatment for depression, anxiety, and pain. While the drug is not approved to treat these conditions, doctors are free to prescribe the drug for off-label uses.
Authorities said Perry had been receiving regular ketamine treatments for depression — in amounts not sufficient to explain his death — from his regular doctors, who were not among those charged.
When these doctors refused to give him more, he went in desperation to others.
“We’re not talking about a legitimate ketamine treatment,” Estrada said. “We’re talking about two doctors who abused the trust they had, who abused their licenses to put someone else’s life at risk.”
In one instance, the actor paid $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost a doctor about $12, DEA Director Anne Milgram said. Estrada said Perry paid doctors about $55,000 in cash in the two months before his death.
Estrada said two of the accused, including one of the doctors, were arrested on Thursday. Two of the accused, including Iwamasa, have already pleaded guilty to the charges against them, and a third has agreed to plead guilty.
Among those arrested Thursday was Dr. Salvador Plascencia, who faces seven counts of distributing ketamine as well as two counts of allegedly falsifying records after Perry’s death.
Plasencia appeared briefly in court Thursday afternoon and pleaded not guilty. He could be released on $100,000 bail.
Plasencia’s attorney, Stefan Sachs, asked that his client be allowed to continue seeing patients at his clinic after his release, saying he had already surrendered his DEA license to prescribe dangerous drugs and that Perry’s case was “isolated.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian V. Ianniello objected, saying that Plasencia “was basically acting like a street corner drug dealer.”
Magistrate Judge Alka Sagar ruled that Plasencia could not treat patients unless they signed a document saying they had been informed of the charges against him.
“Ultimately, Dr. Plasencia was acting with what he believed to be the best medical intentions,” Sachs said outside the courtroom, and his actions “certainly did not rise to the level of criminal misconduct.” “His only concern was to provide the best medical treatment and not to cause harm,” he said. “Unfortunately, harm occurred. But that was after he was involved.”
Another person called in the case Thursday was Jasvin Sanga, who prosecutors described as a drug dealer known to clients as the “Ketamine Queen” — a nickname her attorney mocked as being for media consumption during the court hearing. Authorities said the ketamine Sanga provided caused Perry’s death.
Sanja pleaded not guilty and was denied bail. She was initially arrested in the case, charged with possession of ketamine with intent to distribute, and released on bail in March, with authorities keen to keep Perry’s involvement secret. But a new indictment unsealed Thursday alleges a direct link to the actor’s death, and a judge ruled she should remain in custody out of concern over prosecutors’ claims that she destroyed evidence and used money from drug sales to fund a lavish lifestyle.
Prosecutors said Plasencia could face up to 120 years in prison if convicted, while Sangha could face life in prison.
Records show Plasencia’s medical license was in good standing with no records of complaints, even though it was set to expire in October.
A San Diego physician, Dr. Mark Chavez, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Prosecutors allege Chavez transported the ketamine to Placencia and obtained some of the drug from a wholesale distributor through a forged prescription.
The prosecutor said the defendants exchanged messages immediately after Perry’s death, suggesting ketamine was the cause of death. Estrada said they deleted the messages and falsified medical records in an attempt to cover up their involvement.
The Los Angeles Police Department said in May it was working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to investigate why the 54-year-old man had a large amount of the surgical anesthetic in his system.
Iwamasa was found lying face down in a hot tub on October 28, and paramedics who were called immediately declared him dead.
The assistant received the ketamine from Eric Fleming, who pleaded guilty to obtaining the drugs from Sanga and delivering them to Iwamasa. In all, Fleming delivered 50 vials of ketamine for Perry’s use, including 25 vials delivered four days before the actor’s death.
Perry’s autopsy, released in December, revealed that the amount of ketamine in his blood was within the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.
But the coroner said it had been a week and a half since he had received his previous forensic treatment, and the drug is usually metabolized within hours.
Estrada said Plasencia witnessed Perry freeze and his blood pressure rise after injecting him with the drugs, but he still left several vials with Iwamura for the actor to inject later.
Multiple requests for comment from attorneys for Chavez, Iwamasa and Fleming went unanswered Thursday.
The report said the coroner listed ketamine as the primary cause of death, which was ruled an accident and not suspected to be foul play. The coroner said drowning and other medical issues were contributing factors.
Perry has struggled with years of addiction dating back to his time on “Friends,” when he became one of the biggest TV stars of his generation as Chandler Bing alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on the hit NBC comedy series.
Other cases of celebrity drug-related deaths have led to authorities prosecuting the people who supplied them.
After rapper Mac Miller died of an overdose of cocaine, alcohol and fake oxycodone laced with fentanyl, two of the men who supplied him with the fentanyl were convicted of drug distribution. One was sentenced to more than 17 years in federal prison, the other to 10 years.
After Michael Jackson died in 2009 from a lethal dose of propofol, a drug intended for use during surgery and other medical procedures, not to treat the singer’s insomnia, his doctor, Conrad Murray, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2011. Murray has maintained his innocence.
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Writer Michael Balsamo contributed from New York.