The two doctors charged in connection with the death of Matthew Perry are still allowed to “prescribe medications to their patients.”
The doctors, Dr. Mark Chavez and Dr. Salvador Plasencia, Both still have active medical licenses after being charged with “conspiracy to deliver ketamine” to the late Friends star, who fatally overdosed in October 2023.
According to TMZThe men, who are being investigated by the California State Medical Board, have “no restrictions” on their licenses and “can prescribe strong medications to anyone.”
The State Medical Board confirmed in a statement obtained by the outlet that “both licenses are valid and active and the board has not imposed any restrictions.”
Chavez, 54, has already admitted to diverting supplies from his clinic by writing false prescriptions while Plascencia rushed to carry out Perry’s orders.
The two doctors charged in connection with the death of Matthew Perry are still allowed to ‘prescribe drugs to their patients’ (Perry in picture in 2017)
In one case, Plascenica conspired with Chavez to get Perry to pay $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost $12 after he became increasingly desperate to obtain the drug.
Earlier this week, prosecutors alleged that doctors realized the actor could die when they saw him “freezing” from an overdose just days before his death.
Plascencia was licensed to prescribe and administer the powerful tranquilizer, but needed the help of another doctor to keep track of the massive amounts Perry consumed in the weeks before his death.
Plascencia, 42, showed contempt for Perry as his dependency increased, reportedly texting a coworker, “I wonder how much this idiot will pay.”
But he later realized the actor’s life was hanging by a thread when Perry suffered a seizure after an overdose 16 days before his death.
“Let’s not do that again,” he said nervously to Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa.
The shocking details emerged Thursday when Plascencia and four other alleged accomplices were arrested after a grand jury indictment.
Perry was found unconscious in the hot tub of his LA home by Iwamasa on October 28. His cause of death was later determined to be “the acute effects of ketamine.”
The doctors, Dr. Mark Chavez and Dr. Salvador Plasencia (pictured), both still have active medical licenses after being charged with “conspiracy to deliver ketamine” to the late Friends star, who fatally overdosed in October 2023.
Iwamasa has since admitted that he was the one who administered the lethal doses to the actor, after Plascencia trained him how to administer them.
On October 4, Iwamasa reported that he had successfully injected Perry, noting that he “found the right spot, but after trying different spots he kept running out of ketamine.”
The affidavit states that Perry spent $55,000 on ketamine supplied by Plascencia in the two months before his death, and that Iwamasa administered 27 injections of ketamine to Perry in just five days.
San Diego doctor Mark Chavez, 54, has admitted to diverting supplies from his clinic by writing false prescriptions while Plascencia fulfilled Perry’s orders as quickly as possible.
In one instance, Plascenica conspired with Chavez to get Perry to pay $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost $12 after he became increasingly desperate to get his hands on the drug, the documents show.
According to TMZ, the men, who are being investigated by the California State Medical Board, have “no restrictions” on their licenses and “can prescribe serious drugs to anyone; Dr. Mark Chavez is pictured above.
Iwamasa relayed Perry’s requests in coded language, referring to bottles of ketamine as “Dr Pepper,” “cans” and “bots” via encrypted messaging apps.
At one point he asked if he could pay with “something other than cash” because “it’s hard to get to the bank quickly with everything happening so quickly these days.”
But doctors could barely keep up with the demand, so Iwamasa turned to the actor’s friend, 54-year-old Eric Fleming, for additional resources.
He in turn went to Hollywood’s alleged ‘Ketamine Queen’ Jasveen Sangha, 41, and told Iwamasa: ‘She only does business with high-end and celebrities. If it wasn’t great stuff, she would lose her business.’
Sangha sold dozens of bottles of the drug to Iwamasa through Fleming and was so pleased with the size of his orders that she threw in a few ketamine lollipops as an added bonus.
But she was well aware of the risks of the drug, prosecutors allege, after allegedly selling it to her client Cody McLaury just hours before he died of an overdose in 2019.
“The ketamine you sold to my brother killed him,” an irate relative told her in a text message. “It’s listed as the cause of death.”
This comes after prosecutors alleged that doctors realised the actor could die when they saw him ‘freezing’ from an overdose just days before his death; Perry seen in 2016
Iwamasa had originally relied on Plascencia to inject Perry during meetings that normally took place at Perry’s home.
But on October 10, the three men met in a Long Beach parking lot, where Plascencia injected Perry into a parked car.
Two days later, Plascencia warned him after Perry’s near-fatal overdose, but gave Iwamasa more bottles before leaving.
As the assistant’s expertise increased, Iwamasa injected Perry up to six times a day before finding him dead in his hot tub on October 28.
And as news of the beloved actor’s death broke that evening, Sangha instructed Fleming to “delete all of our posts.”
But police were hot on her trail and were given permission to raid her home, where drugs were being sold, in March this year.
Officers found “significant quantities of illegal drugs, including approximately 1.978 grams of orange pills that tested positive for methamphetamine, 79 vials of clear liquid that tested positive for ketamine, and various other suspected narcotics,” according to a court complaint.
Prosecutors said Sangha was a “major drug dealer” who had previously been identified by the DEA, LAPD investigators and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Perry’s cause of death was later determined to be “the acute effects of ketamine” (seen in 2017)
Analysis of her phone revealed “conversations regarding the sale of pressed methamphetamine pills and ketamine.”
And video footage found on her phone shows her “cooking ketamine,” a DEA agent wrote.
She faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison and a statutory maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of all charges.
Plascencia is charged with seven counts of distribution of ketamine and two counts of altering and falsifying documents or records related to the federal investigation.
He faces up to 10 years in prison for each ketamine-related charge and up to 20 years in prison for each falsifying document charge.
Fleming admitted that he had obtained the ketamine from Sangha and supplied it to Iwamasa. Iwamasa subsequently admitted to giving the drug to the star.
Iwamasa and Fleming face 15 and 25 years in prison, respectively, if convicted in their federal trial.
Chavez was charged under a plea agreement and is scheduled to appear in court on August 30. If convicted, Chavez faces a maximum of 10 years in federal prison.
In his last post on Instagram, Perry shared photos of himself in the hot tub at home where he would soon be found dead
“We allege that each of the defendants played a significant role in his death by falsely prescribing, selling or injecting the ketamine that caused Matthew Perry’s tragic death,” said DEA Director Anne Milgram.
‘Matthew Perry’s journey began with unscrupulous doctors who abused their positions of trust because they saw him as a money lender, and with street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials.’
The actor has been candid about his struggle with drug abuse.
In 2022, he said he had spent an estimated $9 million battling his addictions, across 15 rehab clinics.
He had a valid prescription for ketamine at the time of his death, but had not used it for a week and a half. Based on that, prosecutors concluded that Sangha had supplied the ketamine that killed him.
An autopsy found that the amount in Perry’s blood was within the range used for general anesthesia during surgery. “The acute effects of ketamine” were listed as the primary cause of death.
“These defendants were more concerned with profiting from Mr. Perry’s business than with his well-being,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada told a news conference.
‘Drug dealers who sell dangerous substances gamble with the lives of others out of greed.
“This case, along with the many other prosecutions of drug dealers who cause death, sends a clear message that we will hold drug dealers accountable for the deaths they cause.”