California doctor Mark Chavez was sentenced to eight months of home confinement for supplying ketamine to Friends star Matthew Perry in the months before the actor’s 2023 death, a California court ruled.
Chavez, 55, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to supply the drug. He ran a ketamine infusion clinic near San Diego and must also complete 300 hours of community service, according to the court’s order. Prosecutors said Perry was buying ketamine for up to $2,000 a vial in the weeks before he was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home at age 54.
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The sentence makes Chavez the second doctor punished in the case. Earlier this month, another physician, Plasencia, was jailed for two and a half years. In text messages cited by prosecutors, Plasencia mused to Chavez, “I wonder how much this moron will pay.” Both men have surrendered their medical licenses.
Three additional defendants who admitted roles in supplying the actor are expected to be sentenced in the coming months. They include Jasveen Sangha, an alleged “Ketamine Queen” who prosecutors say catered to high-end clients and celebrities and faces a potential sentence of up to 65 years. Perry’s live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Perry’s death sharpened scrutiny of how the powerful anesthetic and dissociative drug is obtained and used beyond tightly supervised medical settings. A criminal investigation began shortly after an autopsy determined he had high levels of ketamine in his system. Authorities have said Perry had been using ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression, but prosecutors contend he became addicted to the substance, which can have psychedelic properties.
Perry’s struggles with addiction were extensively documented throughout his career and in his own writing, yet news of his death sent shockwaves through the global fan base of Friends. The NBC sitcom, which aired from 1994 to 2004, followed six New Yorkers navigating adulthood and made megastars of its cast. Perry’s portrayal of Chandler Bing — fast with a quip and often hiding insecurities behind sarcasm — brought him fame and fortune while masking a darker battle with painkillers and alcohol.
In 2018, Perry suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries. In his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” he described cycles of relapse and recovery, writing that he had gone through detox dozens of times. “I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”
The string of guilty pleas and sentencings underscores how Perry’s addiction intersected with a broader pipeline for ketamine that extends from clinics and prescribers to illicit suppliers. Prosecutors say the network that surrounded the actor combined professional credentials with street-level sourcing to meet high-priced demand in the weeks before his death.
With Chavez’s sentencing, attention now shifts to the defendants awaiting judgment, including Sangha. The outcomes could shape the legal and professional consequences for those who straddle the line between therapeutic ketamine use and criminal distribution — and serve as a cautionary note amid the drug’s growing popularity as a treatment for depression and other conditions.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
