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Matthew Perry: Several arrests in connection with the actor's death



CNN
—

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, five people have been charged in connection with the death of actor Matthew Perry in 2023.

The charges were announced at a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday morning.

The defendants – including two doctors, Perry's personal assistant and a person authorities have dubbed the “ketamine queen” – are accused of “administering ketamine in the final weeks of Perry's life,” according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

US Attorney Martin Estrada said the defendants had “exploited Mr. Perry's addiction problems.”

“They knew what they were doing was wrong,” Estrada said.

The popular actor, who played the role of Chandler Bing on Friends, died in October 2023 at the age of 54. Perry was found floating facedown in the pool of his Pacific Palisades home. The actor died from the “acute effects of ketamine” and subsequent drowning, according to the autopsy report from the Los Angeles Medical Examiner's Office.

In May, Los Angeles Police Department Captain Scot Williams told CNN that the investigation into Perry's death was ongoing and criminal in nature.

“Hypothetically, there is the possibility of criminal liability depending on what the investigation reveals, but we are not there yet,” he said at the time.

Williams said authorities were investigating how Perry got the drugs and who may have supplied them. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service were also involved in the investigation.

Police investigators walk down the street where Matthew Perry's house was located the night of his death in October 2023.

When Estrada announced the charges on Thursday, he said investigators believe Perry will have “relapsed into addiction” in the fall of 2023.

Perry had described in detail his decades-long struggle with drug addiction in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. He wrote that he began abusing prescription drugs after he was involved in a jet ski accident on the set of the 1997 film Fools Rush In and was prescribed Vicodin.

According to his book, Perry eventually increased his dosage to as many as 55 pills a day, which led to significant weight loss that was visible during his time on Friends. He noted that it was difficult to watch the physical transformation he went through during his time on the show.

“I was so incredibly thin and so depressed by the disease,” Perry wrote.

Ketamine has been used more and more frequently in recent years as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain. According to the Associated Press, people close to Perry told medical examiners that he had received ketamine infusion therapy and had been treated by at least two doctors before his death.

Perry's death came as a shock as he was a popular character in the series “Friends” between 1994 and 2004, where he starred alongside Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Kudrow.

After Perry's death, they released a joint statement in which they wrote: “We are all deeply saddened by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just colleagues. We are family.”

“There is so much to say, but right now we are taking a moment to grieve and process this incredible loss,” their representatives said in a statement. “Over time, we will say more when we are able. Right now, our thoughts and love are with Matty's family, friends and everyone who loved him around the world.”

This story is evolving and will be updated.

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