Another Former Doctor Sentenced After Matthew Perry’s Fatal Overdose
Another former doctor is headed to federal prison in connection with Matthew Perry’s death. Mark Chavez was sentenced, following the earlier imprisonment of Salvador Plasencia, after the Friends star died from a lethal ketamine overdose in 2023.
Another sentencing just dropped in the Matthew Perry case, and this one is a twist: the former doctor at the center of the ketamine supply chain didn't get prison time. The other doctor did.
What Mark Chavez got
- 8 months of home detention
- 3 years of supervised release
- 300 hours of community service
- $100 special assessment
- Pleaded guilty in 2024 to one count of conspiring to distribute ketamine in a case tied to Perry
- Sentence handed down Tuesday, December 16, 2025
Chavez is a former San Diego physician who ran a ketamine clinic. Prosecutors say he sold ketamine to another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, who then passed it along to Matthew Perry. So yes, there were two doctors involved here, and they did not get the same outcome: Plasencia was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, while Chavez will serve his time at home under supervision.
"My heart goes out to the Perry family," Chavez said outside court after the sentencing.
How we got here
Perry died on October 28, 2023, after he was found unresponsive in his hot tub and pronounced dead later that day. On December 15, 2023, the medical examiner ruled the cause as acute effects of ketamine. Other factors noted in the report: the presence of buprenorphine, drowning, and coronary artery disease.
That led investigators to dig into how such a high amount of ketamine reached him. Ultimately, five people were charged in connection with the case. Chavez's role, per prosecutors, was upstream: he supplied the ketamine to Plasencia, who then supplied Perry.
A quick reminder about Perry
Before his death, Perry was open about his struggles with addiction, especially in his 2022 memoir, "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing." It makes the details of this case even tougher to read, and the uneven sentences between the two doctors are definitely going to raise eyebrows.