Doctor to plead guilty in Matthew Perry’s ketamine overdose death

Aug. 31 (UPI) -- A federal judge in Los Angeles has agreed to let Dr. Mark Chavez enter into a plea agreement in actor Matthew Perry ' ketamine overdose death in October.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jean Rosenbluth on Friday released Chavez,54, on a unsecured $50,000 bond after accepting a plea agreement on one count of conspiring to distribute ketamine, which resulted in Perry's accidental death .

Rosenbluth allowed the plea agreement during the arraignment hearing and ordered Chavez to surrender his passport. Chavez also agreed he no longer will practice medicine.

Chavez is "incredibly remorseful" for his role in Perry's death "not just because it happened to Matthew Perry but because it happened to a patient," Chavez's attorney Matthew Binninger told reporters outside the federal courthouse in Los Angeles.

Chavez could be imprisoned for up to 10 years and already had his medical license suspended. He is one of five defendants in the federal case.

"We allege each of the defendants played a key role in his death by falsely prescribing, selling or injecting the ketamine that caused Matthew Perry's tragic death," Drug Enforcement Agency chief Anne Milgram said when announcing the charges.

She said Perry's death started with "unscrupulous doctors who abused their position of trust because they saw him as a payday to street dealers who gave him ketamine in unmarked vials."

Perry's personal aid, Kenneth Iwamasa, and another man Perry knew, Erik Fleming, have pleaded guilty to their respective charges in the case.

Iwamasa, 59, admitted to federal investigators that he injected Perry with ketamine several times on the day that he died and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.

Fleming, 54, pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of ketamine causing death and one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.

Two other defendants in the case have pleaded not guilty to their respective charges.

Jasveen Sangha, 41, is charged with several felonies for drug distribution and maintaining a premises used for drug purposes. She allegedly is a drug dealer known in Los Angeles as the " ketamine queen ."

Defendant Salvador Plasencia, 42, a Santa Monica, Calif., physician, is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.