His mother and step-father, Suzanne and Keith Morrison, in their victim statement detailed how hard the loss was to comprehend and said they struggled to understand Plasencia’s motive.
“Sometimes it’s a little easier to understand when a person commits a terrible crime. Maybe in the heat of passion, or because that person makes one very bad decision,” they wrote. “But…a doctor? Who trades on respect, and trust?”
They said Matthew had spent time trying to recover and was hoping for another acting comeback.
“He wanted, needed, deserved..a third act. It was ..in the planning. And then, those jackals.”
In a letter to the judge last month, Plasencia apologised and said he had fully taken responsibility for his actions and role in Perry’s death.
“I did not set out to harm anyone, but my decisions during those days betrayed my duty as a physician,” Plasencia wrote. “I crossed lines that no doctor should ever cross. No one forced me to do this; it was my own poor judgment and it was wrong.”
He explained that his medical clinic had been struggling and despite seeing Perry’s “signs of addiction”, the offer of “large sums of money was appealing”.
Plasencia also said that he voluntarily surrendered his medical license when he was arrested and gave up his clinic and the profession that once defined him. He said that he would “accept whatever sentence this Court deems appropriate”.
Ketamine has some hallucinogenic effects and is meant to be administered only by a physician.
The actor was taking legal, prescribed amounts of the drug to treat his depression, but then started wanting more than what was provided.
Court documents as part of the federal investigation show it led him to multiple doctors and a woman prosecutors called the “Ketamine Queen” who supplied vast amounts of the drug and others from her Los Angeles home, which they called a “drug-selling emporium”.
Prosecutors say Plasencia – also known as “Dr P” – injected Perry with ketamine at his home and in the parking lot of an aquarium in Long Beach, about 25 miles south of Los Angeles.
Plasencia taught Perry’s assistant Kenneth Iwamasa – who also pleaded guilty in the case – how to administer the drug and sold additional vials for them to keep at home, according to court documents filed for the plea agreement.
Prosecutors say between 30 September 2023 and 12 October 2023, Plasencia sold twenty 5ml (100mg/ml) vials of ketamine, ketamine lozenges, and syringes to Perry and his assistant.
Prosecutors have said Plasencia and others charged in the case “took advantage of Mr Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves”.
