16 August 2024, 22:03
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Friends star Matthew Perry “froze up” from a ketamine injection just days before his death, prosecutors said.
This follows the arrest of five people in connection with his death.
Two doctors Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez, the actor’s assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, Erik Fleming and alleged drug dealer Jasveen Sangha, known as Ketamine Queen of Los Angeles, are facing charges.
Martin Estrada, Attorney for the Central District of California, alleges Dr Plasencia taught Iwamasa how to inject Perry with ketamine, despite knowing he was “spiralling out of control with his addiction.”
He added that, just 16 days before Perry’s death, a ketamine injection saw the actor “freeze up and his blood pressure spike.”
“Let’s not do that again,” Dr. Plasencia allegedly told Iwamasa.
Despite this, the doctor left additional vials of the drug on the scene, prosecutors claim.
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“Defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves,” Estrada said during a press briefing on Thursday.
“They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry, but they did it anyway.”
Perry’s live-in assistant has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, after Perry died aged 54 last October.
Prosecutors said Iwamassa admitted injecting Perry with ketamine repeatedly and without medical training, including the fatal dose on October 28.
According to the indictment against him, Iwamassa injected Perry 27 times in the five days leading up to his death.
That includes the last three injections that prosecutors say caused his “death and serious bodily injury.”
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He later found Perry floating face-down in his hot tub at home in Los Angeles.
Iwamassa, 59, had worked for Perry for nearly 30 years at the time of his death, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He wrote on his page: “I thrive in chaotic situations which call for order. I am discreet, loyal and honor absolute confidentiality,” adding: “I love deadlines, contracts, dotting i’s and solving puzzling situations and projects”.
Iwamassa is accused of procuring the ketamine that he gave to Perry from a network of drug dealers. Police said on Thursday that four others – including two doctors – had been charged in connection with his death.
Prosecutors claim the doctors began discussing how much money they could get from Perry, with Plasencia accused of asking in a text: “I wonder how much this moron will pay.”
Anne Milgram of the US Drug Enforcement Administriation said that the five people charged were “responsible for the death of Matthew Perry”.
She said: “We allege each of the defendants played a key role in his death by falsely prescribing, selling, or injecting the ketamine that caused Matthew Perry’s tragic death.
“Matthew Perry’s journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw him as a payday, to street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials.”