LOS ANGELES — A former California doctor was sentenced to 8 months of home detention and 3 years of supervised release Tuesday after pleading guilty to ketamine distribution in connection with the fatal overdose of “Friends” star Matthew Perry.
Mark Chavez pleaded guilty in 2024 to one count of conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry, who died two years ago at 54. Chavez appeared Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett in Los Angeles. He faced up to 10 years in prison.
He will also be required to complete 300 hours of community service and pay a $100 special assessment to the U.S. government.
“My heart goes out to the Perry family,” Chavez said outside of court after his sentencing.
Zach Brooks, a member of Chavez’s legal team, said Tuesday: “[W]hat occurred in this case was a profound departure from the life he had lived up to that point. The consequences have been severe and permanent. Mr. Chavez has lost his career, his livelihood, and professional identity that he has worked for decades to develop.”
“Looking forward, Mr. Chavez understands that accountability does not end with this sentence. He’s committed to using the rest of his life to contribute positively, to support others and to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again,” Brooks said. “While he cannot undo what occurred, he can choose how he lives his life from this moment.”
Chavez was one of five people charged in connection with Perry’s death. The TV star was found dead of an accidental overdose in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home in October 2023.
Another Chavez lawyer, Matthew Binninger, has said his client was “incredibly remorseful” and “accepting responsibility” for his patient’s overdose.
Chavez was a licensed physician in San Diego who formerly operated a ketamine clinic. Prosecutors said he sold ketamine to another former doctor, Salvador Plasencia, who then distributed it to Perry.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia said in a text exchange to Chavez, according to the investigators. “Lets find out.”
Earlier this month, Plasencia was sentenced to two and a half years in federal prison for his involvement in the case.
Garnett heard arguments in court Tuesday from both the prosecution and defense about why Chavez’s sentence should be lighter than Plasencia’s, despite the two being co-conspirators.
“The court is grappling with how to assign culpability,” the judge said, noting that there are five parties in the case but that Chavez’s conduct was most similar to Plasencia’s.
The prosecution said that while the conduct of both physicians was “egregious,” Plasencia “was face-to-face with Matthew Perry … despite knowing he was spiraling out of control.” Prosecutor Ian Yanniello also noted that Chavez cooperated fully with investigators from the start, unlike Plasencia.
In court, Binninger said that Chavez had voluntarily surrendered his medical license quickly and that the roughly $5,000 he made from the conspiracy ultimately “cost him his life and career.”
Before sentencing, Chavez addressed the judge directly, speaking about his experience helping patients and delivering bad news to families while an ER doctor.
“I take this very seriously, and I understand what it’s like to mourn the passing of a loved one,” he said.
While handing down her sentence, Garnett said that the actual dose of ketamine that killed Perry was not supplied by Chavez and Plasencia, but by others charged in the case. However, she said that Chavez still held some responsibility.
“You and Mr. Plasencia helped Mr. Perry stay on the road of addiction that ultimately killed him,” she said.
She added that unlike Plasencia, Chavez was “less willing to keep going forward” after he learned that Perry had suffered an adverse reaction on Oct. 12, 2023. She also credited Chavez’s willingness to work with investigators.
The indictment had said Chavez wrote “a fraudulent prescription in a patient’s name without her knowledge or consent, and lied to wholesale ketamine distributors to buy additional vials of liquid ketamine that Chavez intended to sell to Plasencia for distribution to Perry.”
In the month before his death, the doctors provided Perry with about 20 vials of ketamine and received some $55,000 in cash, according to federal prosecutors.
Perry was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety, according to a coroner’s report. However, the levels of ketamine in his body at the time of his death were dangerously high, roughly the same amount used for general anesthesia during surgery. The coroner ruled his death an accident.
Before his death, Perry was open about his lengthy struggles with opioid addiction and alcohol use disorder, which he chronicled in his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”
Katie Wall reported from Los Angeles and Daniella Silva from New York.
