Dr Salvador Plasencia will enter a guilty plea with federal prosecutors, it was announced on Monday, June 17th. The California-based ‘Ketamine Queen’ is accused of four counts of supplying the drug, including to Matthew Perry—famous for playing Chandler Bing on the hugely popular 1990s sitcom Friends—who was found dead at his Los Angeles home in October 2023.
Plasencia now faces up to 40 years’ imprisonment. Text messages between him and Dr Mark Chavez—who has already entered a guilty plea—were viewed by prosecutors. They show Plasencia calling Perry a “moron” and speculating about how much the star would be willing to pay for the drugs. Perry had a legal prescription for the drug to treat his depression, but Plasencia, as part of a small network operating outside the law, supplied additional and unsafe quantities of ketamine on demand. He even taught Perry’s assistant how to administer the substance using a syringe.
The two guilty pleas to date from the two doctors should speed up the federal prosecution of the five-person alleged Hollywood ketamine network. It is unlikely to be the last such case of this nature, unfortunately.
