Several arrests have been made in the death of actor Matthew Perry, according to reports.
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TMZ was the first to report that multiple arrests were recently made.
Update 1:38 p.m. ET Aug. 15: U.S. Attorney Marin Estrada said two defendants, including Perry’s live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, already pleaded guilty to the charges. A third said they would also plead guilty, The Associated Press reported.
Iwamasa pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, The New York Times reported. He said he injected Perry with the drug several times the day the “Friends” actor was found dead. He was also the one who found him unresponsive, face down in his hot tub on Oct. 28.
Ketamine is an anesthetic used for chronic pain and depression.
Erik Fleming, an acquaintance of Perry’s, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and a count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death, the Times reported. Prosecutors said Fleming got the ketamine from Jasveen Sangha and gave Iwamasa 50 vials of the drug, half of them four days before Perry died.
Estrada said that some of the defendants wondered via text message how much Perry would pay for the ketamine, they also used terms such as “Dr. Pepper,” “cans” and “bots” as stand-ins for the drug’s name, the Times reported.
Urgent care physician Dr. Salvador Plasencia texted Dr. Mark Chavez about obtaining ketamine to sell to a person identified in text messages as “M.P.,” police confirmed that the initials stood for Perry. They texted about how much to charge for the drug, writing, “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Let’s find out,” the Times reported.
“These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong,” Estrada said during the Thursday press conference, the AP reported.
Update 12:57 p.m. ET Aug. 15: The New York Times reported that Perry’s personal assistant was among those charged. The documents filed in federal court said that the assistant and an acquaintance worked with two doctors and a drug dealer to get Perry ketamine in the weeks before his death.
Named in the indictment were Jasveen Sangha, dubbed “the Ketamine Queen;” Salvador Plasencia, dubbed “Dr. P’;” Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s assistant; Dr. Mark Chavez and Erik Flemming, Perry’s acquaintance.
Sangha and Plasencia are charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine, distribution of ketamine resulting in death and altering and falsifying records related to a federal investigation among other charges, the Times reported.
Iwamasa, Chavez and Fleming are charged separately with conspiracy to distribute ketamine, the newspaper reported.
Update 12:08 p.m. ET Aug. 15: ABC News reported that five people are facing federal charges and that the arrests were made early Thursday morning. Among those in custody are two doctors.
The accused were charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine, federal sources told ABC News , adding that the doctors were the initial sources, but when it became too expensive, Perry bought the drug from a woman known as the “Ketamine Queen of Los Angeles.”
Original report: One of those in custody is apparently a doctor.
The gossip site said that search warrants were issued and that law enforcement seized computers, phones and other devices to discover who gave the “Friends” actor the ketamine that led to his death last year.
What is ketamine, whose ‘acute effects’ led to death of ‘Friends’ actor Matthew Perry?
Perry had been prescribed ketamine infusions to treat depression but the levels of the drug found in his system were too high and were the amount normally given for surgery, the medical examiner said, NBC News reported.
His last infusion was a week and a half before his death, meaning that the drug at the levels found was not prescribed by a doctor, TMZ surmised. Perry died on Oct. 28 at the age of 54.
Los Angeles medical examiner says Matthew Perry’s death caused by ‘acute effects of ketamine’
The Los Angeles Police Department has been working with federal agencies including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office on the investigation since his death, KABC reported.
Matthew Perry death: LAPD, DEA investigating source of ketamine that led to actor’s death
TMZ said the search found text messages talking about Perry and the drug and how the people were getting it. The messages also allegedly said how much he would pay.
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Officials plan on announcing the details of the investigation later today.
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