UPDATED
5 people, including 2 doctors, assistant, charged in death of Matthew Perry
Posted August 15, 2024 10:12 am.
Last Updated August 15, 2024 2:22 pm.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says five people, including two doctors and a personal assistant, have been charged in connection with the death of actor Matthew Perry.
“The investigation revealed that in the fall of 2023 Mr. Perry fell back into addiction and these defendants took advantage to profit for themselves,” US Attorney Martin Estrada said during an update Thursday.
The defendants are accused of supplying the actor with ketamine, which led to an overdose and the 54-year-old drowning in his hot tub last fall.
Estrada said the doctors took advantage of Perry, supplying vials of the drug for large sums of money.
“They saw this as an opportunity to profit off Mr. Perry,” he said. “The defendants in this case knew what they were doing was wrong.”
Drug couriers who arranged the delivery of ketamine to Perry were also arrested.
Estrada said the five are faces charges including conspiracy to distribute ketamine, distribution of ketamine resulting in death and altering and falsifying medical records, among others.
Los Angeles police said in May that they were working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service with a probe into why the 54-year-old had so much of the surgical anesthetic in his system.
Perry’s autopsy, released in December, found that the amount of ketamine in his blood was in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery. It was listed as the primary cause of death, which was ruled an accident with no foul play suspected.
Drowning and other medical issues were contributing factors, the coroner said.
People close to the actor told coroner’s investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy. The decades-old surgical drug has seen a massive surge in use in recent years as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain.
TMZ first reported on Perry’s death on Oct. 28, 2023.
At least two doctors were treating Perry, a psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist who served as his primary care physician, a medical examiner’s report said. No illicit drugs or paraphernalia were found at his house.
Perry had years of struggles with addiction dating back to his time on “Friends,” 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.
Perry grew up in the U.S. and Canada. His mother, Suzanne Perry, was a Canadian journalist and former press secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and his father, John Bennett Perry, was an actor.
In 2022, the actor published his memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.” The book details his experiences with addiction, his time on “Friends,” and other personal anecdotes.
With files from The Associated Press
