Los Angeles
A licensed drug habit counselor who delivered “Friends” star Matthew Perry the doses of ketamine that killed him was sentenced Wednesday to two years in jail.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence to 56-year-old Erik Fleming in a federal court docket in Los Angeles.
“It’s truly a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Fleming informed the decide earlier than the sentence. “I’m haunted by the mistakes I made.” He wore a black swimsuit and spoke on the podium with a deep, somber voice.
A decide ordered Fleming, who has been free on bond for about two years, to flip himself in to serve his time period in 45 days. He was additionally sentenced to three years of probation.
Fleming was the fourth defendant sentenced of the 5 who have pleaded responsible in prosecutions over the actor’s 2023 loss of life within the Jacuzzi at his Los Angeles house. Fleming linked Perry to Jasveen Sangha, the convicted drug who seller prosecutors referred to as “The Ketamine Queen.” She was sentenced final month to 15 years in jail.
Fleming gave up Sangha to investigators as quickly as they contacted him and in August 2024 grew to become the primary defendant to plead responsible, admitting to one rely of distribution of ketamine leading to loss of life. That was earlier than arrests within the case have been even introduced, and Wednesday was his first court docket look since his position grew to become public data.
His legal professional Robert Dugdale informed the decide he “handed over the Ketamine Queen on a silver platter.”
“They didn’t have a clue who she was before that day,” Dugdale stated.
He would have gotten about 4 years in jail if it weren’t for his cooperation, in accordance to federal sentencing pointers.
The prosecution stated he deserved credit score for doing the precise factor, however argued that he did so solely when confronted and cornered by authorities.
“Mr. Fleming didn’t cooperate because he had a benevolent motive, or because he wanted justice for Mr. Perry,” Assistant US Attorney Ian Yanniello stated. “He wanted to save himself.”
The decide additionally identified that Fleming didn’t come ahead within the months after Perry’s loss of life, that he didn’t create new proof by making telephone calls to co-conspirators or something related, and that the knowledge he supplied might need been obtained anyway merely by the seizure of his telephone.
But all agreed that he sped up and smoothed the investigation together with his cooperation.
Prosecutors stated in a sentencing memo earlier than the listening to that whereas Fleming’s distinctive cooperation ought to deliver a lighter sentence, his position 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” ought to rely towards him, even when Perry wasn’t one in every of his common shoppers.
Defense legal professionals emphasised that he had no felony document and repeatedly identified that he solely spent 11 days of his life dealing medicine and to a single buyer.
They had requested for a sentence of three months in jail and 9 months in a residential drug remedy facility.
Fleming stated his nice regret “can’t compare to the agony I’ve caused” to Perry’s household and buddies.
He and his legal professionals additionally highlighted what they referred to as his extraordinary work in the direction of rehabilitation, spending 20 months sober and serving to to set up a sober residing house. After the listening to, he hugged a number of buddies who have been within the courtroom to help him.
Defense legal professionals had requested for a sentence of three months in jail and 9 months in a residential drug remedy facility, saying of their sentencing memo that Fleming “has gone to extreme lengths to atone for his criminal conduct.”
Perry had been receiving ketamine therapies for despair — an more and more widespread off-label use.
A couple of weeks earlier than his loss of life, Perry was seeking more of the drug than he might get through doctors and requested a buddy to assist him get extra. She was in a remedy facility, so launched Perry to Fleming. He was a former movie and tv producer whose profession had been ravaged by habit. He received sober and have become a drug counselor, however had relapsed after the 2023 loss of life of a beloved stepmother who had rescued him from a traumatic childhood, his legal professionals stated.
Fleming would get ketamine from Sangha, mark up the worth to make a revenue, and ship it to Perry’s home, the place he bought it to the actor’s live-in private assistant Kenneth Iwamasa.
His deliveries included 25 vials for $6,000 4 days earlier than Perry’s loss of life.
Iwamasa would inject Perry from that batch on Oct. 28, 2023, and hours later, he discovered the actor useless. A health worker’s report discovered that Perry died from the acute results of ketamine, a surgical anesthetic, and drowning was a secondary trigger.
Iwamasa is about to be the final defendant sentenced in two weeks.
Perry, who died at 54, grew to become one of many greatest stars of his technology as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” NBC’s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.
An public sale of his valuables together with “Friends” memorabilia will go to profit the muse based in his identify after his loss of life.