Celebrity
Matthew Perry’s Death Leads To Sweeping Indictment Of 5, Including Doctors And Reputed Dealers
Los Angeles — Nearly ten months after Matthew Perry’s death, the long-simmering inquiry into the ketamine that killed him came to light with the announcement that five persons had been charged with contributing to the beloved “Friends” star’s overdose.
Here are the important details regarding the case, including the two key players who may face trial and the likelihood of the worst prison penalties.
Matthew Perry’s Death Leads To Sweeping Indictment Of 5, Including Doctors And Reputed Dealers
A comprehensive series of indictments
One or more arrests were expected after detectives from three different agencies stated in May that they were launching a coordinated investigation into how Perry, 54, obtained such massive amounts of ketamine.
The actor was one of an increasing number of people who used the potent surgical anesthetic to treat depression or chronic pain through legal but off-label techniques.
Recent reports suggested that indictments were imminent, but few outside observers, if any, anticipated how broad the prosecution would be, going much beyond prior cases involving celebrity overdoses.
Michael Jackson died in 2009 from a deadly dose of the anesthetic propofol, and his doctor was accused of supplying it. After rapper Mac Miller died in 2017, two men, characterized by authorities as a dealer and a middleman, were convicted of selling fentanyl-laced oxycodone that contributed to his death.
However, Perry’s case involved both, with indictments issued by both doctors and illicit dealers who prosecutors said preyed on his long and public struggles with addiction. The inquiry even went after Perry’s live-in personal assistant, who authorities claim helped him obtain ketamine and injected it directly into him before he was discovered dead in his hot tub on October 28, 2023.
“They were aware that what they were doing posed a significant risk to Mr. Perry. But they did it anyhow,” said US Attorney Martin Estrada, who announced the accusations.
Even before the announcement, the prosecution had already begun. Two individuals, including the assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, and a Perry acquaintance, Eric Fleming, have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute the narcotic. A San Diego physician, Dr. Mark Chavez, has decided to enter a guilty plea.
This leaves prosecutors free to pursue their two main targets.
The Doctor and the ‘Ketamine Queen’
According to an indictment released on Thursday, Perry turned to Los Angeles doctor Salvador Plasencia after his regular doctors refused to give him additional ketamine. Prosecutors claim Plasencia took advantage of Perry’s desperation and addiction, convincing him to pay $55,000 in cash for huge volumes of the drug in the two months leading up to his death.
“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia texted a co-defendant, according to the indictment.
On Thursday afternoon, he appeared in federal court and pleaded not guilty to seven charges of ketamine distribution.
Stefan Sacks, Plasencia’s attorney, stated outside court that he “was operating with what he thought were the best of medical intentions,” and that his acts “certainly did not rise to the level of criminal misconduct.”
Prosecutors claim that Jasveen Sangha, a drug dealer known to customers as the “Ketamine Queen,” delivered the doses of the substance that killed Perry, which Iwamasa injected into the actor using syringes supplied by Plasencia.
Sangha has also pleaded not guilty. During the hearing, her lawyer, Alexandra Kazarian, slammed the “queen” nickname as a media-friendly term. The lawyer declined to comment on the case outside of court.
Prosecutors allege that the other doctor in the case, Chavez, assisted Plasencia in obtaining the ketamine he supplied to Perry, while Perry’s acquaintance, Fleming, assisted in getting ketamine from Sangha to Perry.
Chavez faces up to ten years in prison, Iwamasa up to fifteen, and Fleming up to twenty-five years.
Multiple mails seeking response from the three men’s solicitors have yet to be responded.
Looking ahead to trial.
If convicted as charged, Sangha faces life in jail, while Plasencia faces up to 120 years. Each has a trial date in October, but it is unlikely that any will face a jury before then, so the two may be tried together. They could face testimony from co-defendants who reached plea deals.
Magistrate Judge Alka Sagar determined Sangha should be jailed without bond while awaiting trial, noting prosecutors’ claims that she destroyed evidence and maintained a luxury lifestyle through drug sales long after Perry’s death.
Matthew Perry’s Death Leads To Sweeping Indictment Of 5, Including Doctors And Reputed Dealers
The judge agreed to let Plasencia go after he posted a $100,000 bond.
His lawyers argued that the Perry case was “isolated” and that the doctor should be permitted to serve patients who relied on him at his one-man business while awaiting trial.
“I’m not buying that argument,” Sagar said but decided Plasencia may visit patients if they signed a contract acknowledging the charges.
“People have probably already heard about it from the amount of press,” Sacks told the judge, adding that if they hadn’t already, they would shortly.
Plasencia’s medical license is in excellent standing, with no complaints, but it is slated to expire in October, and he may face disciplinary action. He has already given up his federal license to administer more harmful medications.
Pushing back against ketamine
Prosecutors and police characterized the Perry case as part of a massive fight against an increase in illegal ketamine usage, which has overshadowed the legalization of its use.
In May, Los Angeles police stated they were collaborating with the United States Medication Enforcement Administration and the United States Postal Inspection Service on an investigation into how Perry obtained the medication. His autopsy, conducted in December, revealed that the amount of ketamine in his blood was within the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.
“As Matthew Perry’s ketamine addiction progressed, he desired more, faster, and cheaper. That is how he ended up buying from street traffickers and stealing the ketamine that eventually led to his death,” said U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Anne Milgram on Thursday. “In doing so, he followed the terrible trajectory that we have witnessed with countless others. The substance use disorder starts in the doctor’s office and finishes on the street.”
Perry struggled with addiction for years, beginning with his time on NBC’s megahit sitcom “Friends,” which aired for ten seasons between 1994 and 2004. He rose to prominence as Chandler Bing on Friends, starring Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer.
SOURCE | AP
Celebrity
Jason Kelce Smashes Football Fan’s Phone
Retired Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce destroyed a Penn State football fan’s phone after the alleged heckler called his brother, Travis Kelce, a fag.
In now-viral footage published on X (previously Twitter) on Saturday, Nov. 2, the retired Philadelphia Eagles great was seen accompanied by football fans outside Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa., for the Penn State-Ohio State game.
As the individual capturing the tape lifted a fist to Jason, 36, and called his name for a fist bump, another man nearby hurled the homophobic slur at the retired Philadelphia Eagles star.
Hey, Kelce. How does it feel that your brother is a queer dating Taylor Swift?” the man questioned, referring to Travis, 34, who has been seeing Swift since 2023. Jason turned around seconds later, snatched the man’s phone, and crushed it to the ground.
“Looked like a Penn State student was getting in Kelce’s face for no reason,” the original X user who submitted the video remarked. “Wild scene in State College.”
“Kelce how does it feel that your brother is a f****t for dating Taylor Swift?”
Jason Kelce proceeded to slam this kids phone on the ground.
Looked like a Penn State student was getting in Kelce’s face for no reason. Wild scene in State College pic.twitter.com/3PEdZXWhSg
— Chives (@jarrett_daveler) November 2, 2024
Additional footage on X shows Jason smashing the phone on asphalt before picking it up and walking away. The phone’s owner, wearing a Penn State hoodie at the time of the incident, was shown in many videos strolling closely behind Jason and recording him before the conflict occurred.
Another footage published on X, which appears to have been filmed after Jason shattered the man’s phone, showed the hooded Penn State supporter trudging through a mob to pick up his phone off the ground.
“Give me my phone, bro,” he seemed to say to Jason.
The NFL alum seized the gadget first, then stood in front of the man and asked, “Who’s the fag now?” Others appeared to interfere.
The incident occurred while Jason was at Beaver Stadium for an appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay. The Ohio State Buckeyes won Saturday’s game 20-13 over the Penn State Nittany Lions.
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Celebrity
Shaun White’s Proposal To Nina Dobrev Was Romantic Gold
Shaun White, the Olympic snowboarding champion, already has an impressive medal tally, but his surprise proposal to Nina Dobrev deserves a gold medal.
On Wednesday, the couple announced their engagement on Instagram. Dobrev posted photographs of the two hugging under an arch of white roses and showing off her five-carat Lorraine Schwartz engagement ring.
“RIP boyfriend, hello fiancé,” Dobrev said in the caption.
However, the photographs only tell half the tale, as Shaun devised an elaborate plan to surprise Dobrev with his proposal.
Shaun White’s Proposal To Nina Dobrev Was Romantic Gold
According to a Vogue interview published Wednesday, Shaun said he assembled a team of people from the couple’s inner circle and Vogue personnel to trick Dobrev into thinking she had been invited to an intimate dinner party with Anna Wintour.
Dobrev accepted the invitation, joking that Shaun made it “look so legitimate.”
He even asked Dobrev’s stylist to outfit her in Chanel for the event.
Dobrev said she recognized what was happening when she entered the venue and saw White standing beneath the flowery arch.
Shaun’s Proposal To Nina Dobrev Was Romantic Gold
“I went into shock,” Dobrev admitted, later adding that White “said all the right things” before she agreed.
According to the publication, after Shaun proposed, the couple partied into the early morning hours with close friends and relatives.
“Best night of my life,” Shaun captioned his Instagram story on Wednesday.
The duo first became romantically involved in 2020, and they have since publicly recorded their relationship, globe vacations, and White’s Olympic farewell on social media.
SOURCE | CNN
Celebrity
Hollywood Actress Teri Garr Passes Away at 79
Hollywood actress Teri Garr, known for her roles in classics like “Young Frankenstein” and “Tootsie,” has passed away at 79. She died Tuesday of multiple sclerosis “surrounded by family and friends,” said publicist Heidi Schaeffer.
Admirers took to social media in her honor, with writer-director Paul Feig calling her “truly one of my comedy heroes. I couldn’t have loved her more” and screenwriter Cinco Paul saying: “Never the star, but always shining. She made everything she was in better.”
Throughout her career, the performer, often known as Terri, Terry, or Terry Ann, seemed destined for show business from a young age.
Her father was Eddie Garr, a well-known vaudeville comic, and her mother was Phyllis Lind, one of the original high-kicking Rockettes at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Their daughter began dancing classes at six and was performing with the San Francisco and Los Angeles ballet companies by age fourteen.
She was 16 years old when she joined the road crew of “West Side Story” in Los Angeles, and she began starring in small roles in films as early as 1963.
In an interview from 1988, she described how she landed the role in “West Side Story.” After being rejected at her initial audition, she returned the following day dressed differently and was accepted.
Teri Garr, a comedian
Teri Garr then found steady work as a movie dancer, appearing in the chorus of nine Elvis Presley films, including “Viva Las Vegas,” “Roustabout,” and “Clambake.”
She has also appeared on various television shows, including “Star Trek,” “Dr. Kildare,” and “Batman,” and was a featured dancer on the rock ‘n’ roll music show “Shindig,” the rock concert performance “T.A.M.I.,” and a cast member of “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour.”
Her breakthrough role was as Gene Hackman’s girlfriend in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 thriller The Conversation. This led to an interview with Mel Brooks, who offered her the Gene Wilder’s German lab assistant role in Young Frankenstein if she could speak with a German accent.
“Cher had this German woman, Renata, making wigs, so I got the accent from her,” Garr once said.
The film established her as a great comic performer, with New Yorker film writer Pauline Kael calling her “the funniest neurotic dizzy dame on screen.”
Her big smile and off-center appeal helped her land roles in “Oh, God!” with George Burns and John Denver, “Mr. Mom” (as Michael Keaton’s wife), and “Tootsie,” in which she played the girlfriend who loses Dustin Hoffman to Jessica Lange and discovers he has dressed up as a woman to revive his career.
A gift for spontaneous humor
Teri Garr, best known for comedy, has shown in films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Black Stallion, and The Escape Artist that she can also tackle drama.
She had a gift for spontaneous humor, frequently playing David Letterman’s foil during early guest appearances on N.B.C.’s “Late Night With David Letterman”.
Her appearances grew so frequent, and the pair’s good-natured bickering so convincing that rumors of romantic involvement circulated for a while. Years later, Letterman acknowledged those early appearances with helping the program become a success.
During those years, Garr began to experience “a little beeping or ticking” in her right leg. It started in 1983 and expanded to her right arm, but she thought she could handle it. By 1999, her symptoms had gotten so bad that she saw a doctor and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
After disclosing her diagnosis, Garr became a spokesman for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, giving hilarious remarks at events in the United States and Canada.
Source: AP
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