A certified addiction counselor who was involved in providing ketamine to “Friends” actor Matthew Perry is about to face sentencing.
LOS ANGELES — An addiction specialist, who supplied “Friends” star Matthew Perry with the ketamine doses that led to his demise, will be sentenced this coming Wednesday.
Prosecutors have recommended a 2 1/2-year prison term for 56-year-old Erik Fleming. He is among five individuals who admitted guilt related to the actor’s 2023 death in the hot tub at Perry’s Los Angeles residence. Fleming played a role in introducing Perry to Jasveen Sangha, the dealer dubbed “The Ketamine Queen” by prosecutors. Sangha received a 15-year prison sentence last month.
The defense team is proposing a lighter punishment, suggesting three months of incarceration followed by nine months in a residential drug rehabilitation program. They argue in their sentencing memorandum that Fleming “has made significant efforts to make amends for his wrongdoing.”
Fleming cooperated with authorities, implicating Sangha immediately upon their inquiry. In August 2024, he was the first to enter a guilty plea, acknowledging his role in distributing ketamine that resulted in death, even before the case’s arrests were publicly disclosed.
He will be the fourth defendant in the case to be sentenced in the Los Angeles federal courtroom of Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett. It will be his first court appearance since his role became public knowledge.
Prosecutors said in their sentencing memo that while Fleming’s exceptional cooperation should bring a lighter sentence, his role as a drug counselor who “deliberately undertook to sell illegal street drugs to a victim who had a public, well-documented battle with drug addiction” should count against him, even if Perry wasn’t one of his regular clients.
Perry had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression — an increasingly common off-label use.
A few weeks before his death, Perry was seeking more of the drug than he could get through doctors and asked a friend to help him get more. She was in a treatment facility, so introduced Perry to Fleming. He was a former film and television producer whose career had been ravaged by addiction. He got sober and became a drug counselor, but had relapsed after the 2023 death of a beloved stepmother who had rescued him from a traumatic childhood, his lawyers said.
Fleming would get ketamine from Sangha, mark up the price to make a profit, and deliver it to Perry’s house where he sold it to the actor’s live-in personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa.
“I procured ketamine for Matthew Perry because I wanted the money and because I thought I was doing a favor for a friend,” Fleming said in a letter to the court. “I never contemplated the worst possible outcome. This grievous failure will haunt me forever.”
His deliveries included 25 vials for $6,000 four days before Perry’s death.
Iwamasa would inject Perry from that batch on Oct. 28, 2023, and hours later he found the actor dead. A medical examiner’s report found that Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine, a surgical anesthetic, and drowning was a secondary cause.
Fleming can technically get 25 years in prison, but it’s very unlikely it will be anywhere near that much.
His lawyers say he has undergone a “transformative” rehabilitation since Perry’s death.
“I will accept my punishment with humility and spend the rest of my life working to become worthy of forgiveness,” Fleming’s letter said.
Iwamasa is the last defendant to be sentenced in two weeks.
Perry, who died at 54, became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” NBC’s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.
An auction of his valuables including “Friends” memorabilia will go to benefit the foundation founded in his name soon after his death.
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