LOS ANGELES, Aug 15 — Two doctors and three others including a personal assistant to actor Matthew Perry have been charged with supplying the Friends star with ketamine, the powerful sedative that caused his overdose death nearly a year ago, authorities said on Thursday. The defendants, including a woman known in Los Angeles as the “Ketamine Queen,” were part of a criminal network that distributed the drug to Perry and others, US Attorney Martin Estrada said. “These defendants took advantage of Mr.
Perry's addiction issues to enrich themselves,” Estrada said at a news conference in Los Angeles. Each defendant played a role in falsely prescribing, selling or injecting the ketamine that led to the actor's death in October 2023, Anne Milgram, administrator of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration, said. Two have been arrested and were expected to be arraigned later on Thursday. They were Jasveen Sangha, 41, and Dr.
Salvador Plasencia, 42. Ketamine is a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, sometimes prescribed to treat depression and anxiety but also abused by recreational users. According to authorities, Sangha was known as the “Ketamine Queen” and sold the doses that killed Perry from her “stash house” in North Hollywood.
Plasencia was accused of distributing ketamine to Perry and to his personal assistant, 59-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa, without a legitimate medical purpose on at least seven occasions. Iwamasa, who lived with Perry, admitte.