A new documentary about Hollywood actor and Friends star Matthew Perry is now streaming on Peacock, examining the toils of addiction that eventually claimed his life and the people who might have been involved.

Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy details the October 28, 2023 death of the 54-year-old celebrity, who was found dead in the jacuzzi of his Pacific Palisades home in Los Angeles. His untimely passing, which the Medical Examiner cited as the result of the acute effects of ketamine, was a tragedy felt by many adoring fans and loved ones, but it also lifted the veil on the five defendants prosecutors have accused of supplying Perry with the drug. 

U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada for the State of California’s Central District explained why.

“In the past, we used to call these things overdose deaths and do more blaming of the victim,” Estrada told the documentary’s producers. “We don’t do that anymore. We blame the drug dealers, the drug sellers for taking advantage of those addiction issues to cause death or serious injury, and that’s why we bring these cases.”

Here’s what to know about those charged in connection with Perry’s death, as featured in Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy.

Kenneth Iwamasa

Kenneth Iwamasa, 59, was Perry’s longtime, live-in personal assistant, and the one who admittedly administered Perry with the final, fatal dose of ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic with hallucinogenic effects. According to Estrada, Iwamasa “inject[ed] Mr. Perry several times” on the day of Perry’s death (on Perry’s behalf) despite Iwamasa having no medical training.

Iwamasa then left Perry alone to run errands, and when he returned, Perry was dead in the water, according to court records.

Iwamasa was accused of getting the drug illegally from multiple sources to sup[port Perry’s addiction over time, according to federal documents reviewed by Oxygen.

On August 7, 2024, Iwamasa pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. In the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s announcement about the charges released later that month, officials stated he faces up to 15 years in federal prison.

Salvador Plasencia

Feds believe Iwamasa initially obtained the ketamine from a physician, Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 42, of Santa Monica. Per the indictment, in September of 2023, Plasencia learned that Perry was interested in obtaining ketamine and then allegedly reached out to Dr. Mark Chavez “about purchasing ketamine so that he could sell the ketamine to Victim M.P. [Matthew Perry].”

According to law enforcement, the pair reportedly sold vials of ketamine that would have normally cost $12 per vial for $2,000 each when selling to Perry.

Purported text messages between Plasencia and Chavez, as reported in the official indictment, showed Plasencia stated: “I wonder how much this moron will pay.” And, according to U.S. Attorney Estrada, they sold Perry 20 vials for $55,000 during a one-month period. 

Plasencia allegedly “distributed ketamine to Perry and Iwamasa outside the usual course of professional practice” at least seven times, including one occasion when he allegedly injected Perry with ketamine in the backseat of a car in a Long Beach parking lot, per prosecution’s official press release announcing the indictment. Federal prosecutors claimed Plasencia ignored Iwamasa’s lack of formal training and showed the personal assistant how to administer the drug.

He currently faces one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, seven counts of distributing ketamine, and two counts of altering and falsifying documents. He’s pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Plasencia’s attorney, Stefan Sacks, asserts his client sought to provide medical care to Perry and that his actions “certainly didn’t rise to the level of criminal misconduct,” KNBC reports.  “His only concern was to give the best medical treatment and to do no harm,” Sacks told the outlet.

Mark Chavez

San Diego physician Mark Chavez, 54, once operated a ketamine clinic and reportedly conspired with Plasencia to illegally sell the drugs. The federal complaint stated he diverted some of the ketamine from his former practice, and some — namely oral ketamine lozenges — were obtained from phony prescriptions under a patient’s name “without [the patient’s] knowledge or consent.”

Feds stated Chavez also “lied to wholesale ketamine distributors to buy additional vials of liquid ketamine that Chavez intended to sell to Plasencia for distribution to Perry.”

Chavez has agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, as seen in Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy. He faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

Erik Fleming

In Perry’s final days, as the actor’s addiction and tolerance increased, Kenneth Iwamasa sought out TV and film director Erik Fleming, 54, an acquaintance who prosecutors allege had ties to L.A.’s drug underworld. Fleming admitted to obtaining 50 vials from his alleged source, Jasveen Sangha a.k.a. “The Ketamine Queen,” and acting as the middleman between Iwamasa and Sangha’s North Hollywood “stash house,” according to the Feds. 

Prosecutors say that in an October 24, 2023 text — four days before the actor’s death — Fleming texted Iwamasa that the ketamine was “on its way to our girl,” reportedly referring to Sangha. Charging documents stated the dose that killed Perry was in the batch Sangha allegedly supplied to Fleming, which Fleming supplied to Iwamasa, and which Iwamasa injected into Perry.

Since the August 2024 arrests, Fleming pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distributing ketamine resulting in death. He now faces up to 25 years in federal prison.

Jasveen Sangha

The indictment alleges that Jasveen Sangha, 41, labeled by federal agents as “The Ketamine Queen,” is a drug dealer who provided the ketamine that ultimately killed Perry. More damning, prosecutors allege she supplied the drugs, knowing they could have fatal effects. 

Prosecutors pointed to victim Cody McLaury, who reportedly purchased ketamine from Sangha just hours before his August 2019 overdose death. As featured in the new Peacock special, when McLaury’s sister texted Sangha about the young man’s death, Sangha allegedly conducted a Google search inquiring “Can ketamine be listed as a cause of death [?]”

Retired L.A.P.D. Detective Greg Kading told Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy that such evidence possibly showed “this consciousness of guilt.”

Media outlets have painted Sangha as a Calabasas-born woman with an extravagant lifestyle. According to Estrada, a search of her North Hollywood residence yielded large amounts of ketamine, cocaine, methamphetamine, drug ledgers, and scales that pointed to her being “a massive source of drugs.”

Sangha’s social media illustrated a life of private jets, oceanfront resorts, and rubbing elbows with Hollywood elite.

She currently faces multiple charges, including one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine and five counts of distribution of ketamine. She’s pleaded not guilty to all charges. Her attorney, Mark Geragos, has maintained his client’s innocence, telling Chris Cuomo of NewsNation, “Just because it’s a tragedy doesn’t mean it’s criminal.”

Jasveen Sangha and Dr. Salvador Plasencia will face a judge when their trials begin on August 19, 2025

Learn more in Matthew Perry: A Hollywood Tragedy, premiering Tuesday, Feb. 25 on Peacock.