A California doctor was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison on Wednesday for illegally supplying "Friends" sitcom star Matthew Perry with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused the actor's drug overdose death in 2023.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who ran an urgent-care clinic outside Los Angeles, pleaded guilty in federal court in July to four felony counts of illegal distribution of the prescription anesthetic.
He could have faced up to 40 years in prison for the crime.
Perry was found by his live-in assistant floating face down and lifeless in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023. He was 54.
An autopsy report concluded the actor died from the "acute effects of ketamine," which combined with other factors in causing the actor to lose consciousness and drown.
Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychiatric disorders.
It also has seen widespread abuse as an illicit party drug.
Plasencia, who surrendered his medical license in September, admitted as part of his plea agreement that in the weeks before Perry's death he had injected the actor with ketamine on multiple occasions at the actor's home and once in the back seat of a parked car.
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including the years he starred as Chandler Bing on the hit 1990s NBC television series "Friends."
According to federal law enforcement officials, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusions for treatment of depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug.
Source: Reuters
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