The second of two doctors who supplied “Friends” star Matthew Perry with ketamine in the months leading up to his fatal overdose has been sentenced to home confinement by a California court.
Mark Chavez, 55, was on Tuesday ordered to serve eight months under home confinement after admitting one count of conspiracy to supply ketamine. He was also sentenced to 300 hours of community service.
Prosecutors said Perry had been paying as much as $2,000 per vial for the drug in the weeks before his death in October 2023, when he was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home.
Chavez, who ran a ketamine infusion clinic near San Diego, obtained the drug through a fraudulent prescription and supplied it to fellow physician Salvador Plasencia.
Text messages presented in court showed Plasencia referring to the actor as a “moron” and speculating on how much money he could extract from him.
Plasencia was sentenced earlier this month to two-and-a-half years in prison. Both doctors have surrendered their medical licences.
Three other people who admitted to supplying ketamine to Perry are due to be sentenced in the coming months.
Among them is Jasveen Sangha, dubbed the “Ketamine Queen,” who allegedly supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities and could face up to 65 years in prison.
Perry’s live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
The actor’s long struggle with addiction was widely documented, but his death at the age of 54 sent shockwaves through fans around the world.
A criminal investigation was launched after an autopsy revealed high levels of ketamine in his system.
While Perry had been receiving ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression, prosecutors said he became addicted to the substance, which has psychedelic effects and is also commonly misused as a party drug.
Perry rose to global fame as Chandler Bing on the hit sitcom “Friends,” which aired from 1994 to 2004 and followed six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, relationships and careers.
The show made its cast international stars.
Behind the success, however, Perry battled addiction to painkillers and alcohol for decades.
In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon that required multiple surgeries.
In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry detailed repeated stints in rehab and detox. “I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”