Matthew Perry Ketamine Prosecution

Today I will be talking about the Matthew Perry case. In this ketamine death case, five people have been indicted. I will discuss what possible defenses may be in this case and what some of the defendants might be able to do to reduce their sentences.

The Legal Case Behind Matthew Perry’s Ketamine Death

The Matthew Perry case is an example of what’s called a death results case. We are seeing a lot of these lately, especially with the rise of fentanyl. I have seen these cases personally with fentanyl, heroin, and now with ketamine. I have had an opportunity to look over the indictment against Jasveen Sangha and Salvador Plasencia. It’s a pretty damaging picture that has resulted from this.

Typically, in these cases, defendants are looking at a minimum of 20 years. Even when plea agreements are reached with the government and they’re allowed to plead to a non death resulting case, they will still end up somewhere in the 20 year range. Now, I think in this case, the feds are almost certainly looking for life sentences for both Sangha, the “Ketamine Queen”, and also Plasencia, one of the physicians who was providing the ketamine to Matthew Perry. We know that three of the other people who have been involved in this case have entered plea agreements, and they’re clearly cooperating.

There have also been witnesses who have overheard conversations involving this situation. It looks like they’ve been interviewing some of the doctor’s staff and also maybe some patients. There are a number of things that are factored into this investigation that’s still ongoing.

Now, what could be some of the defenses here when you have a death results case?  The most important defense that as a criminal defense attorney you’re going to be looking at is whether or not the ketamine was the reason for the death. We know in this situation, for example, Mr. Perry had a long history of addictions with other drugs as well. So if you’re the defendant, you’re probably thinking, well, I mean, how do I know it was my ketamine? I mean, maybe he was also doing some other stuff.

It’s important to keep in mind that the government is completely driving the narrative. Nobody has heard anything from the defense, but only from the government’s position. The government is saying that this ketamine was the direct cause of Perry’s death. I imagine that the defense counsel is really going to be looking into this. They may seek to get their own pathologist to do whatever kind of scientific testing that they need to.

There are still things that the defense may be able to do to reduce their sentencing. So maybe they say, yes, I did this. I’m guilty, but I shouldn’t have a life sentence, and explain why.

It’s clear from the indictment that Sangha was getting this ketamine from somebody who she called “the scientist”. So it looks like there is somebody who is actually creating this ketamine, and likely Sangha is not the only distributor of it. So you know that the government also wants to get the person above her, so she may be able to use that for purposes of negotiating a lower sentence. There’s also information in here suggesting that there are other celebrities, other people who are receiving this ketamine. If the government wants to fully expand the investigation here, they may try to negotiate something with her in order to get other people implicated, so that they can prosecute those other people.

As for Dr. Plasencia, it’s not so clear what he has that the government may be interested in, and it may be that it’s just not in the indictment, but maybe it’s hard to believe that this is the first time that he’s engaged in this kind of conduct. I mean, it’s extraordinary breach of his ethical duties as a doctor. It’s hard to believe this was the first time, so there may be some other people who might be implicated in other criminal acts that the government may be interested in, and again, that’s sort of thing that they may be able to leverage in order to get a lesser sentence at some point.

I expect this to be a very high profile case and one that’s going to continue. Right now, there are no incentives for Ms. Sangha or Mr. Plasencia to plead guilty. I know the government wants to bring more of these cases. As I mentioned earlier, we have a lot more dangerous drugs on the streets these days, and so the government is going to want to send a message that if you’re involved in the trafficking of these sorts of drugs, there’s going to be a very heavy price to pay.