A Los Angeles judge on Wednesday sentenced Erik Fleming. a licensed drug addiction counselor, to two years in prison for his role in the death of the Friends actor Matthew Perry.
Fleming, 56, acted as a middleman by delivering the actor the doses of ketamine that killed him in October 2023. He had pleaded guilty in 2024 to a count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine,. a count of distribution resulting in death.
Before Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett announced her decision on sentencing, Fleming, who wore a black suit. spoke somberly, expressed remorse for the part he played.
“It’s truly a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Fleming said. “I’m haunted by the mistakes I made.”
Fleming was the fourth defendant sentenced in the case. Five have pleaded guilty in prosecutions over the actor’s 2023 death. Perry, who had a long history of struggles with addiction. mental health, was found dead in the Jacuzzi at his Los Angeles home. He had previously taken ketamine legally to treat depression, but his doctor would not provide him with the drug in the amounts he wanted,. he sought it from other sources.
The five people charged in the case include two doctors, Salvador Plasencia. Mark Chavez; the actor’s assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, who injected him with the drug before his death; Fleming, an acquaintance of Perry’s; and Jasveen Sangha, the convicted drug dealer.
The doctors did not supply the ketamine that killed Perry,. a judge told them that they helped the actor on the road to his death by “continuing to feed his ketamine addiction”.
Authorities have said their investigation revealed Fleming connected Perry to Sangha, whom prosecutors called “ the Ketamine Queen ”. She was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison. Sangha had admitted in her plea agreement that she had distributed drugs, including ketamine. meth, from her home in North Hollywood since 2019 and sold drugs to someone else who later died.
Investigators reported that Fleming gave up Sangha immediately. He was the first defendant to plead guilty in the case, before other arrests were even announced. Wednesday’s court appearance was his first since his role became public knowledge.
He would have received about four years in prison if it weren’t for his cooperation, according to federal sentencing guidelines. But his defense attorneys had argued that he had gone to “extreme lengths” to atone for his conduct. asked for a sentence of three months in prison and nine months in a residential drug treatment facility.
Fleming said his great remorse “can’t compare to the agony I’ve caused” to Perry’s family and friends.
Ahead of the hearing, prosecutors acknowledged Fleming’s cooperation should result in a lighter sentence,. said his role as a drug counselor who “deliberately undertook to sell illegal street drugs to a victim who had a public, well-documented battle with drug addiction” should count against him, even if Perry wasn’t one of his regular clients.
Perry had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression – an increasingly common off-label use.
A few weeks before his death, Perry was seeking more of the drug than he could obtain through doctors. asked a friend to help him get more. She was in a treatment facility, so she introduced Perry to Fleming. He was a former film and television producer whose career had been ravaged by addiction. He got sober. became a drug counselor, but had relapsed after the 2023 death of a beloved stepmother who had rescued him from a traumatic childhood, his lawyers said.
Fleming would get ketamine from Sangha, mark up the price to make a profit. deliver it to Perry’s house, where he sold it to the actor’s live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa.
“I procured ketamine for Matthew Perry because I wanted the money. because I thought I was doing a favor for a friend,” Fleming said in a letter to the court. “I never contemplated the worst possible outcome. This grievous failure will haunt me for ever.”
His deliveries included 25 vials for $6,000 four days before Perry’s death.
Iwamasa would inject Perry from that batch on 28 October 2023, and hours later, he found the actor dead. A medical examiner’s report found that Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine, a surgical anesthetic,. drowning was a secondary cause.
Iwamasa is set to be the last defendant sentenced in two weeks.
Perry. who died aged 54, became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on Friends, NBC’s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.
An auction of his valuables including Friends memorabilia will go to benefit the foundation founded in his name after his death.
Associated Press contributed reporting
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