{"id":72609,"date":"2025-12-16T20:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/72609\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T20:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:56:10","slug":"second-doctor-sentenced-for-role-in-matthew-perrys-od-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/72609\/","title":{"rendered":"Second doctor sentenced for role in Matthew Perry’s OD death"},"content":{"rendered":"

A disgraced ex-doctor got a wrist-slap sentence Tuesday for his role in \u201cFriends\u201d star Matthew Perry\u2019s overdose death \u2014 as his lawyers pleaded for leniency, saying he\u2019s been forced to drive for Uber after giving up his medical license. <\/p>\n

Mark Chavez, 55, was hit with eight months of home confinement by Los Angeles federal Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett after he admitted in October to supplying 22 vials<\/a> and nine lozenges of powerful medical anesthesia ketamine to the actor \u2014 despite knowing his struggles with drug addiction.<\/p>\n

The judge also sentenced Chavez to 300 hours of community service and three years of supervised release.<\/p>\n

Disgraced ex-doctor Mark Chavez was sentenced for his role in Matthew Perry\u2019s overdose death. Toby Canham for NY Post<\/p>\n

Prosecutors agreed to the lenient sentence since Chavez took responsibility for his actions early on in the probe and since he cooperated with the feds<\/a>, prosecutors wrote in court papers earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Chavez, a San Diego doctor who gave up his medical license after he was implicated in Perry\u2019s death, did not supply the actor with the batch of ketamine that ultimately killed him. <\/p>\n

\u201cA sentence of home confinement would further sanction defendant and require him to reflect how his callous profit-seeking violated the trust of patients and cost him not only his license, but his liberty,\u201d the feds wrote on Dec. 3.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Chavez\u2019s lawyers wrote in their own papers earlier this month that the former doctor should get time served since he\u2019s already lost his medical license, lost his reputation and has since been forced to make a meager living as an Uber driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe now supports himself through ride-share driving, earns modest income, and has no remaining assets after the loss of his career, his reputation, and his financial stability,\u201d defense attorneys wrote in papers from Dec. 3.<\/p>\n

Matthew Perry overdosed on ketamine on Oct. 28, 2023. Matt Baron\/BEI\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Mr. Chavez accepts full responsibility for his actions, the record independently establishes that he never met Matthew Perry, never entered his residence, never administered medication to him, and did not supply the ketamine that caused his death,\u201d the defense team continued.<\/p>\n

In the weeks before Perry\u2019s tragic Oct. 28, 2023 death, Chavez sourced the drugs for pal Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who once asked Chavez of Perry in a text, \u201chow much this moron will pay?\u201d<\/p>\n

Plasencia, 43, who was sentenced earlier this month to 2 1\/2 years<\/a> for his role in Perry\u2019s overdose, told Chavez on Sept. 30, 2023 that he had \u201ca famous patient\u201d who \u201coffered to pay a premium\u201d for vials of the drug, prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n

Chavez \u2014 who used to run a ketamine clinic for off-label depression treatment \u2014 got his buddy doctor the drugs on three occasions despite knowing Plasencia was giving Perry the drugs in a risky way, including outside of a medical facility without proper observation and giving the actor dangerous amounts of the drugs that once caused him to have a bad reaction.<\/p>\n

Matthew Perry was taking ketamine at his home in Los Angeles. WFLA<\/p>\n

Plasencia told Chavez how he once injected Perry \u201cin the back seat of a car parked at a public parking lot of an aquarium in Long Beach, Calif.,\u201d and Chavez \u201creprimanded Plasencia\u201d for \u201cdosing him\u201d in a public place where kids were, prosecutors wrote.<\/p>\n

Still, Chavez gave Plasencia batches of the drugs on Sept. 30, Oct. 4 and Oct. 10, including by telling distributors he was getting the drugs for Dreamscape Ketamine \u2014 a company he stopped working at in July 2023, prosecutors claimed.<\/p>\n

Plasencia told Chavez it was \u201clike a bad movie,\u201d the first time he went to Perry\u2019s home and injected him with the drug, court papers alleged.<\/p>\n

Chavez supplied the drugs to Dr. Salvador Plasencia (pictured) who gave them to Perry. David Buchan<\/p>\n

Just a few days later on Oct. 2, 2023, Plasencia asked Chavez to get him more vials, telling the friend \u201cif today goes well we may have repeat business \u2026 let\u2019s do everything we can to make that happen,\u201d prosecutors claimed.<\/p>\n

But after the third time sourcing the drugs for Perry, Chavez found out the California Medical Board and law enforcement were investigating him for improperly getting drugs through his old clinic. He didn\u2019t get any more ketamine for Plasencia.<\/p>\n

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Three others have also been charged, taken guilty pleas in the case and are set to be sentenced in January and February.<\/p>\n

\u201cKetamine Queen\u201d drug dealer Jasveen Sangha, 42, admitted to supplying Perry with the dose of ketamine that killed him. <\/p>\n

Perry\u2019s pal, Erik Fleming, who connected the actor with Sangha two weeks before he died, is also awaiting sentencing.<\/p>\n

And Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry\u2019s assistant, will also be sentenced after he injected the actor with the drugs.<\/p>\n

From 1994 to 2004, Perry played the iconic role of Chandler Bing on the NBC Megahit sitcom, starring alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons.<\/p>\n

Perry had well-known drug and alcohol addiction problems that began after he shot to fame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A disgraced ex-doctor got a wrist-slap sentence Tuesday for his role in \u201cFriends\u201d star Matthew Perry\u2019s overdose death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2136,23552,7317,36908,32150,9,11,10,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-72609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-drug-overdoses","10":"tag-drugs","11":"tag-friends","12":"tag-matthew-perry","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-headlines","15":"tag-new-york-news","16":"tag-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}