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TRANSCRIPT:
Matthew Perry was well known for the decade he spent on the comedy show Friends as the character Chandler Bing.
But behind the scenes, he was battling an addiction to alcohol and painkillers, which he wrote about his memoir 'Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing' .
He also spoke in interviews about relapsing more than 60 times.
"And you can't stop. I could not stop unless I was locked away somewhere."
Ketamine is a short-acting but potent anaesthetic with hallucinogenic properties that is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychological disorders.
Perry had been undergoing medically supervised ketamine infusions for depression and anxiety at a clinic where he became addicted to the drug - turning to unscrupulous providers when clinic doctors refused to increase his dosage.
Perry ultimately died of a ketamine overdose in 2023 - and prosecutors wasted little time in going after those who had supplied him.
The main doctor charged in connection with the drug overdose - Salvador Plasencia - was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Lawyer Mark Binninger says another doctor from San Diego - Mark Chavez - signed an agreement with prosecutors in 2025 to plead guilty to conspiring to distribute the surgical anaesthetic.
"He is incredibly remorseful about what happened. Not just because it happened to Mathew Perry because it happened to a patient. He is trying to do everything to right the wrong that has happened here. My client has accepted responsibility. He is doing everything in his power to co-operate. To help in this situation."
Two others - Perry's live-in personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa and Perry acquaintance Erik Fleming - have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Prosecutors said Erik Fleming - along with a woman dubbed the Ketamine Queen, Jasveen Sangha - sold Perry 51 vials of ketamine, while his assistant repeatedly injected Perry with the drug in the lead up to his fatal overdose.
Fleming and Iwamasa are yet to be sentenced - but Sangha has now been jailed for 15 years.
Defence lawyer Mark Geragos says he's bitterly disappointed by the outcome.
"If you weren't in the courtroom, the argument is, is there's no way that Jasveen is five times more culpable than the person who injected Matthew Perry with the drug, or the doctor who got the drug. To me, it's absurd in the literal meaning of the word. And if this is what the criminal justice system or the theory of crime and punishment is... that the dealer should get five times as much as the person who injects the drug, who is there to take care of somebody, then maybe I've been practicing too long."
But that's not how Perry's stepfather Keith Morrison feels.
He told the judge that he and Perry's mother Suzanne feel a daily, grinding sadness and sorrow.
And speaking outside court, Mr Morrison has called the sentence entirely appropriate.
"Look, you have to have a heart of stone to wake up every morning and make a business out of feeding off the addictions of vulnerable people who are desperate for drugs. Then when you're forced to, you know, confront what you have done, if you don't feel some sense of shame or sorrow, then you're not even human. I think she'll do fine in prison."
