A doctor who pleaded guilty of being involved in a scheme to supply ketamine to actor Matthew Perry before his overdose death has been sentenced to eight months of home confinement.<\/p>\n
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence that included three years of supervised release to 55-year-old Mark Chavez in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
Before the sentence was delivered, Chavez addressed the judge and said he had lost a loved one recently and understood the grief that Perry’s death had caused.<\/p>\n
“I just want to say my heart goes out to the Perry family,” he said.<\/p>\n
He acquired ketamine and gave it to Salvador Plasencia, who was sentenced to two and a half years in prison earlier this month for selling ketamine to Perry in the months leading up to his death.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mark Chavez admitted to obtaining the ketamine from a wholesale distributor on false pretences.\u00a0 (AP Photo: Damian Dovarganes, File)<\/p>\n
Chavez’s attorneys emphasised the difference between the two doctors and said Chavez “accepted responsibility early” by cooperating with investigators and voluntarily giving up his medical licence ahead of his detention hearing.<\/p>\n
His attorney Matthew Binninger said these were “real steps that someone takes toward accountability”.<\/p>\n
He called the sentence a “fair and just outcome” for the case.<\/p>\n
Perry had been taking ketamine, a surgical aesthetic, legally as a treatment for depression.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When his regular doctor would not provide it in the amounts he wanted, he turned to Plasencia, who admitted to taking advantage of Perry, knowing he was an addict.<\/p>\n
Plasencia texted Chavez that Perry was a “moron” who could be exploited for money, according to court filings.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Salvador Plasencia earlier pleaded guilty to four counts of distributing ketamine to the actor. (Reuters: David Swanson)<\/p>\n
Chavez admitted to obtaining the ketamine from a wholesale distributor on false pretences and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He has not been in custody.<\/p>\n
Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on sitcom Friends, when he became one of the biggest TV stars of his generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004.<\/p>\n
Chavez will also be expected to do community service.<\/p>\n
He is the second person to be sentenced of the five defendants who have pleaded guilty in connection with Perry’s death in 2023.<\/p>\n
The other three defendants who reached deals to plead guilty will be sentenced at their own hearings in the coming months.<\/p>\n
The medical examiner ruled ketamine was the primary cause of death.<\/p>\n
AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A doctor who pleaded guilty of being involved in a scheme to supply ketamine to actor Matthew Perry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352638,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,68372,1108,24243,134,60013,60014,48737,193695],"class_list":["post-352637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chavez","tag-court","tag-doctor","tag-entertainment","tag-ketamine","tag-matthew-perry","tag-overdose","tag-perry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}