US Attorney Martin Estrada announced the filing of charges against five people in connection with the death of the famous actor Matthew Perry, after an overdose of ketamine last year. Among the accused are the personal assistant of the former star of the series “Friends” and two doctors.
Mr. Estrada announced the charges Thursday, saying doctors had provided Mr. Perry with a large amount of ketamine and had even exchanged several messages discussing how much the former “Friends” star might be willing to pay.
“These defendants exploited Mr. Perry's addiction problems to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong.” said the prosecutor.
Actor Perry died in October last year of a ketamine overdose and received several injections on the day he died from his personal assistant.
Two of the people, among them one of the accused doctors, have been arrested, said prosecutor Estrada. Two of the defendants, including Mr. Perry's assistant, pleaded guilty to the charges and a third person has agreed to plead guilty.
The prosecutor said the defendants posted messages shortly after the actor's death, citing ketamine as the cause of death.
Mr. Estrada said they tried to cover up their involvement in supplying Mr. Perry with ketamine, a powerful anesthetic that has in some cases been used to treat chronic pain and depression.
Los Angeles police said in May that they are working with the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Postal Inspection Service to investigate why the 54-year-old had such a large amount of anesthetic drugs in his system.
The actor was found upside down in his bathtub on October 28 and the first medics who arrived on the scene pronounced him dead immediately.
His autopsy, published in December, revealed that the amount of ketamine in his blood was the same as the amount used for general anesthesia during surgery.
The number of users of the drug, which has been in use for decades, has increased in recent years. It is used to treat depression, anxiety and pain. People close to actor Perry told coroner's investigators that he was undergoing ketamine infusion therapy.
But investigators said Mr. Perry's last treatment a week and a half before he died did not account for the high levels of ketamine in his blood. The drug is usually cleared from the body within a few hours. At least two doctors were treating Mr. Perry, a psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist who served as his primary care physician, the coroner's report said. No drugs or any illegal means were found in his house.
Ketamine was listed as the main cause of death, while the case was classified as an accident with no suspicion of a possible crime, the report said. Drowning in the bathtub and other medical issues were contributing factors, the forensics team said.
Actor Perry has struggled with substance abuse for years, from the time he played Chandler Bing on Friends, when he became one of the biggest TV stars of his generation alongside actors Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox , Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons, from 1994 to 2004.
