'Ketamine Queen' among five held over Perry death

Five people have been arrested and charged with providing Friends star Matthew Perry with the ketamine that killed him last October, authorities said yesterday. At a press conference, US attorney E Martin Estrada said the suspects include Perry's personal assistant, two doctors, and a North Hollywood woman known as “the Ketamine Queen”.

- MAIRA BUTT, JUSTIN ROHRLICH

According to an indictment unsealed in Los Angeles federal court, Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, and an acquaintance of Perry’s, Erik Fleming, worked with two doctors, Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez, to procure large quantities of ketamine for Perry in the period leading up to his overdose death. “Ketamime Queen” Jasveen Sangha is also charged with supplying Perry with the drug, Estrada said.

Mr Plasencia saw Perry, 54, as a cash cow, the indictment suggests, citing text messages he sent to Chavez about a month before the actor’s death. “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” he wrote in one. “Let’s find out,” he wrote in another. In a third text to Chavez, Plasencia described meeting Perry as “like a bad movie”.

Mr Plasencia administered ketamine to Perry at times, in one visit shooting him up with 360 milligrams of the drug over the course of an hour, the indictment states. Mr Plasencia also taught Mr Iwamasa how to inject Perry with ketamine, leaving the drug and a supply of syringes behind for him in exchange for $4,500, according to the indictment. At the beginning of October 2023, the indictment says Mr Iwamasa texted Plasencia an order for eight vials of ketamine, referring to them as “eight bottles of Dr Pepper.”

On 12 October last year, Mr Plasencia injected Perry with “a large dose of ketamine” that unexpectedly caused the actor to “freeze up,” and spiked his blood pressure, rattling the doctor, according to the indictment.