Hollywood Scandals: Matthew Perry–Five People Arrested, Assistant,

Jasveen Sangha, the woman prosecutors refer to as “the Ketamine Queen,” and Salvador Plasencia, also known as “Dr. P.,”who worked as a physician at a local urgent care center are accused in an indictment to have maintained a house in North Hollywood. The two are charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine, distribution of ketamine resulting in death, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, altering and falsifying records related to a federal investigation and other charges.

The star’s personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, along with Eric Fleming, who has been described as a friend of Perry’s and a street drug dealer, and second doctor, Mark Chavez, were charged.

“These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said at a Thursday press conference. “They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry, but they did it anyways. In the end, these defendants were more interested in profiting off Mr. Perry than caring for his well-being.”

The criminal probe launched in May included the Los Angeles Police Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Service.

Detectives were tracing the actor’s procurement of the illegal drug, which has been used recreationally for decades but also useful in treatment of depression.

Perry’s body was found by an assistant after he had drowned in his swimming pool’s hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home on Oct. 28 after the lethal dose of ketamine caused him to have cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office. The amount of ketamine found in his blood was about the same as what would be used during general anesthesia, the medical examiner said.

The office lists the acute effects of drugs as main cause of his death, and added drowning, coronary artery disease and effects of the drug buprenorphine, used as contributing factors.

After his death, friends confirmed that Perry was undergoing ketamine therapy. However, the actor’s most recent session had been a week and a half prior to his death, according to the Medical Examiner’s report. No other drugs were found in Perry’s system, and there was no paraphernalia discovered in his home, officials said.

In his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry wrote about undergoing ketamine therapy. “I often thought that I was dying during that hour,” he said. “Oh, I thought, this is what happens when you die. Yet I would continually sign up for this shit because it was something different, and anything different is good.”

He added, “Taking K is like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel. But the hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel. Ketamine was not for me.”

Perry had been open about his struggles with addiction to alcohol and opioids.

In his 2022 memoir, at the height of his addiction, which was during his later years on the classic NBC sitcom, he was taking 55 Vicodin pills a day.

According to the medical examiner’s report after his death, a psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist who also served as Perry’s primary care physician were the medical professionals known to be treating Perry in October.

Hollywood Scandals: Matthew Perry–Five People Arrested, Assistant,

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