CALIFORNIA – A cadre of people linked to Matthew Perry – including doctors and North Hollywood’s alleged “Ketamine Queen” – took advantage of his vulnerability as a recovering addict and supplied the beloved actor with the drug that would ultimately kill him, prosecutors say. Now, five people are charged in connection with Perry’s death.

Perry, who starred as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” died last October at age 54. His body was found floating face down in a stand-alone jacuzzi at his Pacific Palisades home. He died from “acute effects of ketamine” and subsequent drowning, according to an autopsy report.

Perry had detailed his decades-long struggles with drug addiction in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.” He wrote that he started abusing prescription medication after he was involved in a jet ski accident on the set of the film “Fools Rush In” in 1997 and was prescribed Vicodin.

Investigators believe Perry “fell back into addiction” last fall, US Attorney Martin Estrada said in announcing the charges Thursday. And a network of people “cared more about profiting off of Mr. Perry than caring for his well-being,” Estrada said. Two doctors – Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez – worked to supply Perry with ketamine, Estrada said. “Defendant Plasencia saw this as an opportunity to profit off of Mr. Perry,” Estrada said. Last September – one month before Perry’s death – Plasencia learned that Perry was interested in purchasing ketamine and contacted Chavez, according to court documents.

In a September 2023 text message, Estrada said, Plasencia wrote: “I wonder how much this moron will pay?” Over the next several weeks, prosecutors said, Plasencia purchased ketamine from Chavez, sold vials of ketamine to Perry’s assistant and taught the assistant how to administer the drugs. Plasencia also went to Perry’s house to drop off ketamine and even injected the drug for Perry in the back of a vehicle in a parking lot, prosecutors said.

On October 12, Plasencia “administered a large dose” to Perry that caused an “adverse medical reaction,” prosecutors said in court documents. Perry’s systolic blood pressure spiked, and he froze up, unable to speak or move, prosecutors said. By mid-October, Eric Fleming – another person close to Perry – started reaching out to an alleged drug dealer to buy vials of ketamine on Perry’s behalf, authorities said. From September to October 2023, Perry was given “approximately 20 vials of Ketamine” that cost him roughly $55,000, the federal prosecutor said. (CNN)…[+]