A former physician who supplied ketamine to “Friends” star Matthew Perry in the weeks leading up to the actor’s death was sentenced Wednesday to serve 30 months — about two and a half years — in federal prison.
Salvador Plasencia, known to Perry as “Dr. P,” according to court filings, appeared before a federal judge Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles. He immediately surrendered after the hearing to begin serving his time. His mother, sitting in the courtroom audience, sobbed and sank to her knees as she watched him get handcuffed.
Plasencia was also sentenced to two years of supervised release.
“You and others helped Mr. Perry stay on the road to such an ending by helping feed his ketamine addiction,” U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett told Plasencia. “You took a Hippocratic oath to do no harm, but you did harm.”
Plasencia pleaded guilty to four felony counts of ketamine distribution in July. He was one of five people charged last year in connection with Perry’s death in October 2023.
During an emotional two-hour sentencing hearing, Perry’s mother, stepmother and two sisters detailed their devastating loss. Suzanne Morrison, Perry’s mother, spoke directly to Plasencia, telling him she used to think her son “could never die.”
“This is my boy,” she told Plasencia. “I just want you to see his mother.”
“This was a bad thing you did,” she added.
“I failed Mr. Perry. I failed him. I failed his family. I failed the community,” Plasencia said soon after. “I should have protected him. It was my oath to protect him.”
He told the court he thought of how he would eventually have to explain to his own son, who is 2 years old, about the day “I didn’t protect a mother’s son.”
Plasencia then turned to Perry’s family, telling them: “I’m sorry. I’m just so sorry.”
Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Plasencia to three years, acknowledging that Plasencia did not provide the ketamine that killed the actor. But, the prosecutors said in a sentencing memo, the doctor’s “egregious breaches of trust and abandonment of his oath to ‘do no harm’ undoubtedly contributed to the harm that Mr. Perry suffered.”
During the hearing, Asst. U.S. Atty. Ian Yanniello referred to Plasencia as “a drug dealer in a white coat.”
Plasencia’s attorneys, Karen L. Goldstein and Debra S. White, had asked that he be placed on three years of supervised release. Goldstein said in court that Plasencia’s “judgment was clouded by the promise of making money.”
After the hearing, Goldstein and White released a statement saying that their client, “accepts the Court’s sentence today with humility and deep remorse.” They noted that Plasencia had voluntarily given up his medical license.
“He was a good doctor loved by those he treated. He is not a villain. He is someone who made serious mistakes in his treatment decisions involving the off-label use of ketamine — a drug commonly used for depression that does not have uniform standards,” they said. “The mistakes he made over the 13 days during which he treated Mr. Perry will stay with him forever.”
Perry’s parents detailed their grief in emotional victim impact statements submitted ahead of sentencing. Perry’s mother and stepfather, Keith Morrison, wrote that they believed Plasencia “is among the most culpable of all.”
“No one alive and in touch with the world at all could have been unaware of Matthew’s struggles,” they wrote. “But this doctor conspired to break his most important vows, repeatedly, sneaked through the night to meet his victim in secret. For what, a few thousand dollars? So he could feed on the vulnerability of our son.”
John and Debbie Perry, Perry’s father and stepmother, addressed Plasencia directly in their letter, writing that their son’s recovery “counted on you saying NO.”
“What ever were you thinking?” they wrote. “How long did you possibly see supplying Matthew countless doses without his death to eventually follow? Did you care? Did you think? How many more people have you harmed that we don’t know about?”
Plasencia was one of five co-conspirators named in an indictment last year, including Dr. Mark Chavez, Perry’s acquaintance Erik Fleming, and former personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa. All of them have since pleaded guilty. Jasveen Sangha, a North Hollywood woman allegedly known as the “Ketamine Queen,” has also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing for selling drugs to Perry.
Perry, 54, was found dead in the hot tub of his Pacific Palisades home two years ago on Oct. 28. He died from “acute effects of ketamine,” according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office. Authorities say the actor’s final dose, injected by Iwamasa, was not provided by Plasencia.
According to the plea agreement, Plasencia was the owner and operator of Malibu Canyon Urgent Care, a clinic in Calabasas. He had applied and received authorization from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to dispense, administer and prescribe narcotics and other controlled substances, as long as those prescriptions were for a legitimate medical purpose.
In late September 2023, about a month before Perry’s death, Plasencia was introduced to Perry by one of his patients, who said the actor was a “high-profile person” willing to pay “cash and lots of thousands” for ketamine treatment, according to the agreement.
Plasencia admitted in the agreement that he spoke to the actor by phone and continued to exchange texts with Perry about the request for ketamine, a legal medication commonly used as an anesthetic. The drug can be abused recreationally, with users drawn to its dissociative effects.
After learning of Perry’s interest, Plasencia contacted Chavez, who had previously operated a ketamine clinic, to obtain the drug to sell to the actor, according to the indictment. In text messages to Chavez, Plasencia discussed how much to charge Perry for the ketamine, stating, “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” and “Lets find out,” according to the indictment.
In a letter to the judge ahead of sentencing, Plasencia said he treated Perry with ketamine and left vials with Iwamasa “despite signs of addiction.” He wrote that the large sums of money were appealing because his urgent care was struggling financially and he could “barely stay afloat.”
“I did not set out to harm anyone, but my decisions during those days betrayed my duty as a physician,” Plasencia wrote. “I crossed lines that no doctor should ever cross. No one forced me to do this; it was my own poor judgment and it was wrong.”