One of the doctors arrested in relation to the death of Matthew Perry last year and distribution of the drug ketamine is “incredibly remorseful,” according to his lawyer.
“Not just because it happened to Matthew Perry but because it happened to a patient,” added defense attorney Matthew Binninger outside federal court in downtown LA on Friday, with a silent Chavez by his side.
Hauled in by the feds on August 15 for the October 2023 demise of the Friends star, Dr. Mark Chavez was in court today in downtown LA for an arraignment hearing. Having inked a plea deal with U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada’s office, the San Diego-based Chavez was expected to enter a guilty plea on Friday, however that didn’t happen.
“He is trying to do everything in his power to right the wrong that happened here,” Binninger said Friday of Chavez. He didn’t accept responsibility today, but only because it wasn’t on the calendar.”
What did happen is that a change of plea hearing for the initially not guilty pleading Chave has been pushed to the fall. At that session, which could come in October according to defense lawyer Binninger, Chavez is expected to enter a guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
The charge carries a ten-year stint in federal prison.
Right now, Chavez remains a free man.
Though the defendant has been stripped of his medical license, Chavez was released by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jean Rosenbluth on a $500,000 bond this afternoon.
Perry died October 28, 2023 at his home in Los Angeles
On December 15, 2023, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office declared that 54-year-old Perry passed away from the “acute effects of ketamine.” The autopsy report also cited drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine — a drug used to treat opioid use disorder — as contributing to his death.
Chavez did not directly provide the ketamine to Perry.
Rather, the now disgraced doctor sold the drug, some of which he diverted from his former ketamine clinic, to long-time friend and now fellow defendant Dr. Salvador Plasencia. After the drop-off between San Diego and LA between the two doctors, Plasencia passed the ketamine on to Perry and his now charged ex-live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa. The contempt the doctors had for long time addict Perry was made pathetically clear in a text where Plasencia wrote to Chavez, “I wonder how much this moron will pay.”
Upon the LAPD-assisted arrests earlier this month of Chavez, Plasencia, Iwamasa, Eric Fleming (who provided the ketamine that actually contributed to Perry’s death in his hot tub just before Halloween 2023) and the so-called “Ketamine Queen” Jasveen Sangha, prosecutors revealed that Perry had been paying $2,000 per vial of ketamine.
That’s a massive mark-up over the $12 cost of each single vial of ketamine.
In what remains an on-going investigation, law enforcement sources tell Deadline there is a”high likelihood” that there could be more arrests over Perry’s death in the coming weeks.
The U.S. Attorney’s office had no further comments on Chavez or the Perry case today.
