Tonight at around 7 p.m. UK time, Plasencia, the owner of an urgent care facility in Malibu, will be sentenced to a sentence in LA. Prior to coming to a plea deal, he had been scheduled to go on trial in the case in August.
Matthew Perry’s devastated mother and stepdad have criticized the doctor who gave him ketamine weeks before he passed away.
In a moving victim impact statement released before his court hearing in Los Angeles today, Suzanne and Keith Morrison expressed their anger toward Salvador Plasencia. After pleading guilty to four counts of distributing ketamine to Friends star Perry, who overdosed in his jacuzzi in October 2023, Plasencia faces years in prison.
Plasencia and others were referred to as “jackals” who exploited their son before he died at the age of 54, according to the pair’s statement, which was filed in the United States Courthouse in LA today.
The new statement by his parents says: “I believe the man you are going to sentence today is among the most culpable of all. His crime I find truly hard to understand. “Here was a man who’d studied for years and years, poured sweat and tears, I imagine, into his quest to become a doctor. A long road with a narrow gate, to enter that esteemed profession. Why become a doctor?
“Once and for all, to cure the sick,” to provide human healing. To prevent harm. The Hippocratic oath, an ancient vow to first, do no harm, is thought to be the most significant and sacred promise he has ever made.
When someone commits a terrible crime, it might be a little easier to understand. Perhaps in the heat of passion, or because the person makes a terrible decision, or because a bad drug dealer takes the calculated risk of being found guilty and serving a lengthy sentence.
“But…a doctor? Who trades on respect, and trust? And not just one bad decision.. No one alive and in touch with the world at all could have been unaware of Matthew’s struggles.
However, this doctor repeatedly sneaked through the night to meet his victim in secret in order to break his most significant vows. What, a few thousand dollars? So he could feed on our son’s vulnerability and crow as he questioned, “I wonder how much this moron will pay. Find out, let’s find out.
Along with British woman Jasveen Sangha, 42, who has been dubbed the “ketamine queen,” Plasencia is one of five people who has entered a guilty plea to giving Perry drugs.
Prior to reaching a plea deal, Plasencia, the owner of an urgent care clinic in Malibu, had planned to go on trial in the case in August. According to the prosecution, he could receive a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison for each count. Perry was receiving the medication “for depression and anxiety,” according to a postmortem report, but it was unclear whether the ketamine in his system was that at the time of his death.
Mr. Morrison described how his mother and Perry’s drug addiction weighed heavily on him. When we started talking seriously about each other, he said, “She – Suzanne warned me that no man could ever stand between her and that boy.” She had no idea that addiction would lead to that particular thing or that the people he trusted would have rushed him to death too soon.
The pair acknowledge that more than two years after the actor’s passing, they are still having trouble adjusting. How do you evaluate grief, they asked? Can you offer any accounting that is reasonable? The bottom is eroding, right? That is true.
“Here was a life that was so intertwined with ours and was sometimes held aloft by duct tape and bailing wire,” according to the statement. “There was nothing that could prevent that enormous evil from killing our first-born son and keeping our hearts with him.” All the effort is wasted until those greedy jackals emerge from the darkness, and everything collapses.
“Over the years, many people, mostly mothers, have told me how a situation like that breaks you and makes you feel broken,” I’ve heard. And I wasn’t quite sure what that meant until I watched Matthew’s mother suffer as a result. Two more years later, it still exists. Can’t see the bottom yet because it’s a deep well.
There are “emotional confusions,” it seems. Whether you want it or not, angst drains deeply. Additionally, unalterable events continue to play out loud. as if it could immediately change. And the dull ache keeps on getting worse.
“Memories are like small knives,” he said. That talented, brilliant, demanding, insecure, obnoxious, talented child who is always the center of attention. because you couldn’t concentrate on him. Not as a famous TV star as he was a youngster. His mother called him that Matso-ratso.
According to Plasencia’s attorneys, prison time is unnecessary because “Mr. Plasencia has already experienced and will continue to experience for many years to come.”
They wrote that “He has already lost his clinic, career, and medical license.” His family has relocated out of state for their safety, and he has also been viciously attacked in the media and threatened by strangers.
His attorneys claimed that Plasencia had mistreated Perry “without having a thorough understanding of ketamine therapy and his patient’s addiction,” and that it had been “the biggest mistake of his life.”
They claimed that he accepts the consequences of his actions and that he is looking for ways to assist those without medical licenses and hopes to launch a non-profit aimed at addressing food insecurity.
His attorneys have also tried to differentiate Plasencia from the four other defendants in the case who have also all pleaded guilty, including two dealers who provided the fatal dose of ketamine to Perry, the actor’s personal assistant who administered it and another doctor who ran a ketamine clinic.
According to his attorneys, Plasencia treated Perry for “a discrete thirteen-day period in the physician-patient context of depression.”
They continued, “Mr. Plasencia was not treating M. P. at the time of his death and he did not give him the ketamine that caused his overdose.”
Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 12 in accordance with Plasencia’s plea agreement, he gave Perry and the actor’s live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, 20 vials of ketamine, ketamine lozenges, and syringes.
According to his plea agreement, he “admits that his conduct fell below the proper standard of medical care” and that the ketamine vials that were given to Defendant Iwamasa and Victim M. P. were not used for legitimate medical purposes.
In their witness statement, Mr and Mrs Morrison added: “And now we are left with…victim impact statements. And people all around the world could join us in those. “Even now, when we visit his grave, we find little momentos there: Flowers of course, and coins, and bits of Friends swag, little stuffed toys, batman stickers, notes scrawled on scraps of paper, and cards and letters full of emotion. Often full of gratitude. His story moved so many people.
Source: Mirror
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