Doctor who sold Matthew Perry ketamine appeals sentence, says he was ‘just a drug dealer’
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A doctor who was sentenced to 30 months in prison for selling ketamine to Matthew Perry is challenging his sentence, saying he was working as a drug dealer – not a doctor – when he sold it to the late star. Friends.
According to the defense report obtained by CBC News, the lawyers of Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, said he received a harsher sentence than co-defendants Mark Chavez and Erik Fleming. They said Placencia “was punished more severely because of his official position even though he did not abuse his position of trust or use special ability,” when he sold ketamine to Perry.
The brief says Plasencia, who was sentenced Dec. 3 after pleading guilty to four counts of distributing ketamine, “was not acting as a doctor.”
“Instead, he was a drug dealer, similar to the role played by defendants Chavez and Flemming.”
Perry saw Plasencia “for what he was in this case, namely, a drug dealer who happened to have an ‘MD’ after his name,” the brief said. “There was no fiduciary relationship in place and Perry did not provide the plaintiff with any insight as a treating physician.”
In short, Plasencia’s lawyers agree that doctors have positions of trust and have special skills, but they say “these qualities must be shown to ‘contribute in some important way,'” to the case, a standard they say does not apply in this case.
They called the presiding judge’s emphasis on Plasencia’s status as a doctor “incorrect,” arguing that his credentials “have nothing to do with the commission of drug crimes.”
The 54-year-old actor, best known for playing Chandler Bing on the hit sitcom Friends she was found dead in the hot tub of the home she shared with her assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, in October 2023, after a ketamine overdose.
According to court documents, Iwamasa bought the drugs and administered some of the injections, and it is reported that Perry told him to “shoot me big” on the day he died.
Court documents reveal that Plasencia admitted to distributing ketamine vials to Perry and Iwamasa in the days leading up to the actor’s death. Before one meeting with Perry on September 30, 2023, Placencia wrote to Chavez, who had admitted to receiving ketamine, writing, “I wonder how much this moron will pay.”
Matthew Perry’s live-in assistant was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison in connection with his 2023 ketamine overdose death. Outside court, Kenneth Iwamasa’s lawyer said his client was the victim of a power outage, while Perry’s manager said the actor ‘wanted to live.’
