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A Los Angeles judge on Wednesday sentenced Erik Fleming, a substance abuse counselor, to two years in prison for the Friends actor’s death. Matthew Perry.
Fleming, 56, acted as a middleman in giving the actor the fatal dose of ketamine in October 2023. He pleaded guilty in 2024 to conspiracy to distribute ketamine, and one count of distribution causing death.
Before Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett announced her decision on the verdict, Fleming, who wore a black suit and spoke somberly, expressed remorse for the part he played.
Fleming said: “This is very sad. I am very sorry for the mistakes I made.
Fleming was the fourth defendant to be sentenced in the case.Five have pleaded guilty in litigation the death of the actor in 2023. Perry, who had a long history of battling addiction and poor health, was found dead in a Jacuzzi at her Los Angeles home. He had already taken ketamine legally to treat depression, but his doctor would not give him the drug in the amount he wanted, and he needed it from other sources.
The five accused in this case are two doctors, Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez; assistant actor Kenneth Iwamasa, who injected him with the drug before he died; Fleming, Perry’s friend; and Jasveen Sangha, convicted drug dealer.
Doctors did not prescribe the ketamine that killed Perry, but a said the judge they that he helped the actor on the road to his death by “continuing to feed his addiction to ketamine”.
Authorities said their investigation revealed that Fleming was in contact with Perry and Sangha, who prosecutors called “.Queen of Ketamine“. He was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison. Sangha admitted that he distributed drugs, including ketamine and meth, at his home in North Hollywood starting in 2019 and sold the drugs to another person who later died.
Investigators said Fleming left the Sangha immediately. He was the first accused to confess to the crime, before other people were brought up. Wednesday’s court appearance was his first since becoming public.
He would have received nearly four years in prison without his plea deal, according to federal guidelines. But his lawyers argued that he “went too far” to excuse his actions and asked for three months in prison and nine months in a drug facility.
Fleming said his grief “cannot compare to the pain I have caused” to Perry’s family and friends.
Before the trial, prosecutors agreed that Fleming agreed to a lighter sentence, but said that his role as a drug counselor who “willfully engaged in the sale of street drugs to a victim who had an open, well-known battle against drug use” should be counted against him, even though Perry was not one of his regular clients.
Perry was receiving ketamine treatment for depression – a very common off-label use.
A few weeks before his death, Perry was looking for more medicine than he could get through doctors and asked his friend to help him find more. He was in the hospital, so he introduced Perry to Fleming. He was a former film and television producer whose career was ruined by addiction. He became an alcoholic and became a drug counselor, but relapsed after the 2023 death of the stepmother who saved him from a miserable childhood, his lawyers said.
Fleming takes ketamine from Sangha, puts it up for profit and delivers it to Perry’s home, where he sells it to the man’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa.
“I bought Matthew Perry ketamine because I needed the money and because I thought I was doing my friend a favor,” Fleming said in his letter to the court. I never thought about the worst possible consequences.
His donation included 25 plates worth $6,000 four days before Perry’s death.
Iwamasa stabbed Perry from the group on October 28, 2023, and hours later, he found the actor dead. The medical examiner’s report found that Perry died from the effects of ketamine, surgery, and drowning as a secondary cause.
Iwamasa is expected to be sentenced in two weeks’ time.
Perry, who died at the age of 54, became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on. FriendsNBC’s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.
The sale of his valuables including Friend memorabilia will benefit a foundation established in his name after his death.
The Associated Press contributed to the report
