Marc Chavez is second doctor sentenced in Matthew Perry’s overdose death

A California doctor who sold ketamine to “Friends” star Matthew Perry has been sentenced to eight months of home detention and three years of supervised release, making him the second person to be sentenced in the actor’s death.

Dr. Mark Chavez is one of five people, including another doctor and a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen,” facing drug-related charges stemming from the sitcom star’s 2023 death at his Los Angeles home.

The San Diego doctor admitted obtaining ketamine from his clinic and wholesaler through fraudulent prescriptions and selling it to Dr. Salvador Placencia, who supplied Perry with the dissociated anesthetic.

Plasencia was sentenced earlier this month 30 months in prison.

The multi-year federal investigation into Perry’s death has examined how the Emmy Award-winning actor obtained ketamine through Hollywood’s underground drug network.

Ketamine is a surgical anesthetic used to treat depression, anxiety, and pain.

Perry, who had struggled with drug addiction and depression, was prescribed the drug as part of treatment but soon began seeking more than his allotment.

This eventually led him to a drug ring that ensnared two doctors, Perry’s live-in assistant Erik Fleming, and drug dealer Jasveen Sangha, who had dual American and British citizenship. Known as the “Queen of Ketamine”.

The latter three will be sentenced in the coming months.

Perry’s autopsy found high levels of ketamine in his blood and determined the substance’s “acute effects” contributed to his death.

Prosecutors say Perry aide Kenneth Rock was working with Chavez and Plasencia to provide him with more than $50,000 (£38,000) of ketamine in the weeks before his death.

exist his plea agreementChavez admitted that he obtained ketamine from previous clinics and wholesalers through fraudulent prescriptions. He submitted a fraudulent prescription for 30 ketamine lozenges in the name of a former patient without the former patient’s knowledge or consent and sold it to Placencia and delivered it to Perry.

According to an October 2024 plea agreement, he admitted to selling 22 vials of liquid ketamine and nine ketamine tablets to Plasencia.

The deal was part of a broader scheme in which Chavez and Plasencia discussed seeking financial gain by mocking Perry’s drug addiction in text exchanges.

“I wonder how much this idiot will pay,” Plasencia wrote to Chavez.

Chavez faces up to 10 years in federal prison. As part of a plea agreement in October 2024, he surrendered his medical license and passport.