{"id":669495,"date":"2026-05-14T02:37:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669495\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T02:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T02:37:21","slug":"drug-counsellor-erik-fleming-sentenced-for-role-in-supplying-ketamine-to-matthew-perry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/669495\/","title":{"rendered":"Drug counsellor Erik Fleming sentenced for role in supplying ketamine to Matthew Perry"},"content":{"rendered":"

A licensed drug addiction counsellor who delivered Friends star Matthew Perry the doses of ketamine that killed him has been sentenced to two years in prison.<\/p>\n

Judge Sherilyn Garnett handed down the sentence to 56-year-old Erik Fleming in a federal court in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

“It’s truly a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Fleming told the judge before the sentence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m haunted by the mistakes I made.”<\/p>\n

He wore a black suit and spoke at the podium with a deep, sombre voice.<\/p>\n

\"Erik<\/p>\n

Fleming said he was “haunted” by his decision to supply drugs to Matthew Perry. (AP: Caroline Brehman)<\/p>\n

A judge ordered Fleming, who has been free on bond for about two years, to turn himself in to serve his term in 45 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was also sentenced to three years of probation.<\/p>\n

Fleming was the fourth defendant sentenced of the five who have pleaded guilty in prosecutions over the actor’s 2023 death in the jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fleming connected Perry to Jasveen Sangha, the convicted drug who dealer prosecutors called “the ketamine queen”.<\/p>\n

She was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Matthew Perry was found dead at his Los Angeles home on October 28, 2023. (Reuters: Phil McCarten, file photo)<\/p>\n

Fleming gave up Sangha to investigators the same day they found him at his sister’s house, where he was sleeping on the couch several months after Perry’s death.<\/p>\n

He became the first defendant to plead guilty in August 2024, admitting to one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His attorney, Robert Dugdale, told the judge he “handed over the ketamine queen on a silver platter”.<\/p>\n

“They didn’t have a clue who she was before that day,” Dugdale said.<\/p>\n

Matthew Perry’s death is the end of Friends, too<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ve been ineffably sad ever since the awful news of Matthew Perry’s death. The first fatal rupture within an iconic cultural group \u2014 a band, an acting ensemble\u00a0\u2014\u00a0is the true death of the group itself.<\/p>\n

He would have gotten about four years in prison if it were not for his cooperation, according to federal sentencing guidelines.<\/p>\n

The prosecution said he deserved credit for doing the right thing, but argued that he did so only when confronted and cornered by authorities.<\/p>\n

“Mr Fleming didn’t cooperate because he had a benevolent motive, or because he wanted justice for Mr Perry,” Assistant US Attorney Ian Yanniello said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“He wanted to save himself.”<\/p>\n

The judge also pointed out that Fleming did not come forward in the months after Perry’s death, that he did not create new evidence by making phone calls to co-conspirators or anything similar, and that the information he provided might have been obtained anyway simply through the seizure of his phone.<\/p>\n

But all agreed that he sped up and smoothed the investigation with his cooperation.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said in a sentencing memo that his role as a drug counsellor who “deliberately undertook to sell illegal street drugs to a victim who had a public, well-documented battle with drug addiction” should count against him, even if Perry was not one of his regular clients.<\/p>\n

Defence lawyers emphasised that he had no criminal record and repeatedly pointed out that he only spent 11 days of his life dealing drugs and to a single customer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Erik<\/p>\n

Fleming’s legal team said he was instrumental in the convictions of other people. (AP: Caroline Brehman)<\/p>\n

Fleming told the judge it was an act of desperation “in the midst of the worst time of my life”.<\/p>\n

They had asked for a sentence of three months in prison and nine months in a residential drug treatment facility.<\/p>\n

Fleming told the judge his great remorse “can’t compare to the agony I’ve caused”.<\/p>\n

Outside the courthouse, he said, “My chest and heart hurt every day for the pain I caused not only his family but the millions of people who adore him.”<\/p>\n

He and his lawyers also highlighted his work towards rehabilitation, spending 20 months sober and helping to establish a sober living home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After the hearing, he hugged several friends who were in the courtroom to support him.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

Matthew Perry was known for his performance on the sitcom Friends. (AP: Brian Ach)<\/p>\n

Perry had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression.<\/p>\n

A few weeks before his death, Perry was seeking more of the drug than he could get through doctors and asked a friend to help him get more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was in a treatment facility, so introduced Perry to Fleming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was a former film and television producer whose career had been ravaged by addiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He got sober and became a drug counsellor, but relapsed after the 2023 death of a beloved stepmother who rescued him from a traumatic childhood, his lawyers said.<\/p>\n

Fleming would get ketamine from Sangha, mark up the price to make a profit, and deliver it to Perry’s house, where he sold it to the actor’s live-in personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa.<\/p>\n

His deliveries included 25 vials for $6,000 four days before Perry’s death.<\/p>\n

Iwamasa would inject Perry from that batch on October 28, 2023, and hours later, he found the actor dead.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lee Lai wins Stella Prize<\/a><\/p>\n

Lee Lai’s debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit, was longlisted for the Stella Prize in 2022. Four years on, she’s won the prestigious award for her latest book, Cannon.<\/p>\n

A medical examiner’s report found that Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine, a surgical anaesthetic, and drowning was a secondary cause.<\/p>\n

Iwamasa is set to be sentenced in two weeks.<\/p>\n

Perry, who died at 54, became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on Friends, NBC’s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.<\/p>\n

An auction of his valuables, including Friends memorabilia, will go to benefit the foundation founded in his name after his death.<\/p>\n

AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A licensed drug addiction counsellor who delivered Friends star Matthew Perry the doses of ketamine that killed him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,323266,134,323265,9371,60013,481,60014,48737,37381],"class_list":["post-669495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-drug-counsellor","tag-entertainment","tag-erik-fleming","tag-friends","tag-ketamine","tag-los-angeles","tag-matthew-perry","tag-overdose","tag-prison-sentence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669495","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=669495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}