Matthew Perry death: 5 people charged in drug investigation

Months after the demise of the beloved Friends star Matthew Perry the investigator has charged five people including the actors assistant and two doctors The actor was found dead in his bathtub having passed away from a ketamine overdoseUS Attorney Martin Estrada announced the charges at a press conference on Thursday saying the doctors supplied Perry with a large amount of ketamine and even wondered in a text message how much the former Friends star would be willing to payldquoThis network included a livein assistant various gobetweens two medical doctors and a major source of drug supply known as lsquoThe Ketamine Queenrdquo said Estrada announcing the charges ldquoThese defendants took advantage of Mr Perryrsquos addiction issues to enrich themselves They knew what they were doing was wrong They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr Perry but they did it anyways In the end these defendants were more interested in profiting off Mr Perry than caring for his well beingrdquoPerry died in October due to a ketamine overdose and received several injections of the drug on the day he died from his livein personal assistant The assistant Kenneth Iwamasa is the one who found Perry dead later that dayThe lead defendants in the case are doctor Salvador Plasencia and drug trafficker Jasveen Sangha Together they worked with doctor Mark Chavez Perryrsquos livein assistant Kenneth Iwamasa and a ldquobrokerrdquo named Erik Fleming to obtain ketamine and sell it to Perry Two of the people including one of the doctors charged have been arrested Estrada said Two of the defendants including Iwamasa have pleaded guilty to charges already and a third person has agreed to plead guiltyThe prosecutor said the defendants exchanged messages soon after Perrys death referencing ketamine as the cause of death Estrada said they tried to cover up their involvement in supplying Perry ketamine a powerful anesthetic that is sometimes used to treat chronic pain and depressionLos Angeles police said in May that they were working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the US Postal Inspection Service with a probe into why the 54yearold had so much of the surgical anesthetic in his systemIwamasa found the actor face down in his hot tub on Oct 28 and paramedics who were called immediately declared him dead His autopsy released in December found that the amount of ketamine in his blood was in the range used for general anesthesia during surgeryPeople close to Perry told coroners investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy But the medical examiner said Perrys last treatment 1 12 weeks earlier wouldnt explain the levels of ketamine in his blood The drug is typically metabolised in a matter of hoursPerry had years of struggles with addiction dating back to his time on iquestFriendsiquest when he became one of the biggest television stars of his generation as Chandler Bing alongside Jennifer Aniston Courteney Cox Lisa Kudrow Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBCs megahit sitcomDrugrelated celebrity deaths have in other cases led authorities to prosecute the people who supplied themwith inputs from agencies