Trigger Warning: This article contains mention of death and substance abuse.
Doctor Mark Chavez, one of two doctors charged in the death of Matthew Perry, has accepted a plea hearing in which he is expected to admit his guilt to drug-related charges.
The doctor, who is 54 years old, attended Roybal Federal Courthouse on Friday, August 30, alongside four others charged in Matthew Perry’s case. Perry died of three doses of ketamine.
Chavez is also accused of preparing for the distribution of ketamine, having admitted that he had sold ketamine to Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who brought it to the Friends actor’s assistant Kenneth Iwamasa. As per Associated Press, NBC News, and ABC News, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jean Rosenbluth proceeded to allow the prosecutor’s plea deal and Chavez complied. He was released from jail with the restrictions of a cash bond of fifty thousand dollars USD and cancellation of his medical license.
According to the report, Chavez’s lawyer, Matthew Binninger, said that his client is very sorrowful and looks forward to mending things.
As per Associated Press, “He is doing everything in his power to cooperate, to help in this situation, and he’s incredibly remorseful,” Binninger said in relation to Chavez.
Prosecutors also pronounced that Chavez could face adding up to 10 years of imprisonment. Upon being presented with the plea deal, Binninger continued saying that Chavez knew that the inquiry was quite detailed as it was undertaken by members of the federal government, stressing that his client was ‘prepared to make amends.’
Chavez, who ran a ketamine clinic, confessed to taking the substance that belonged to his practice and gave it to Plasencia, who was not a patient. Further, the prosecutors claim that Chavez got the drugs by using the name of a former patient in a fraudulent prescription using a former patient’s name and then lied to the wholesaler.
In Matthew Perry’s death, the other persons charged are Dr. Salvador Plasencia, Jasveen Sangha, Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s assistant, and Erik Fleming, a friend of Perry’s and suspected of arranging the ketamine deal.
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