After the news that five people have been arrested in connection with Matthew Perry’s death last October, his stepdad Keith Morrison and the rest of the actor’s family say they “look forward to justice taking its course.”
“We were and still are heartbroken by Matthew’s death, but it has helped to know law enforcement has taken his case very seriously,” the family told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“We look forward to justice taking its course and we’re grateful for the exceptional work of the multiple agencies whose agents investigated Matthew’s death. We’re hoping unscrupulous suppliers of dangerous drugs will get the message.”
Dateline correspondent Morrison, from Saskatchewan, became Perry’s stepfather after he married Matthew’s mother Suzanne in 1981.
In March, Morrison opened up on Perry’s death last year at age 54 from “the acute effects of ketamine” after he was found dead in his hot tub.
“As other people have told me hundreds of times, it doesn’t go away. It’s with you every day. It’s with you all the time, and there’s some new aspect of it that assaults your brain,” Morrison said during an appearance on the Making Space with Hoda Kotb podcast.
He said that Perry’s death was “not easy, especially for his mom.”
“Towards the end of his life, they were closer than I’d seen them for decades, texting each other constantly and sharing things with her that most middle-aged men don’t share with their mothers,” Morrison added. “He was happy, and he said so. And he hadn’t said that for a long time, and so that is a source of comfort, but also, he didn’t get to have his third act. And that’s not fair.”
Morrison called Perry’s struggle with drugs and alcohol a “disease” that was “difficult to beat.”
In the wake of his death, the Friends star’s family started the Matthew Perry Foundation to help others struggling with addiction.
An autopsy report released last December revealed Perry died from the acute effects of the anesthetic ketamine on Oct. 28, 2023.
The Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner deemed his death an accident and listed “drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine effects” as secondary factors.
Perry, who had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for much of his life, was reportedly “receiving ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety,” according to USA Today.
In their summary, the medical examiner said the levels of ketamine in Perry’s body were in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery, and that his last treatment less than two weeks prior to his death would have dissipated within hours.
“It is more likely this was recreational ketamine use,” Dr. Bankole Johnson told Page Six.
In January, the Los Angeles Police Department told PEOPLE that authorities’ investigation into the five-time Emmy nominee’s death had concluded. But TMZ reported in May that there was “an ongoing investigation into where Matthew got the ketamine that ended up playing a part in his death.”
Last year, the dealer who sold The Wire actor Michael K. Williams the fentanyl-laced heroin that caused his death was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Similarly, when actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died a decade ago of a fatal drug overdose, multiple people were arrested and taken into custody.
When Michael Jackson died in 2009 from a lethal dose of the anesthetic propofol, his doctor was charged with providing it. After rapper Mac Miller died in 2017, two men who prosecutors described as a dealer and a middleman were convicted of providing fentanyl-laced oxycodone that helped kill him.
On Thursday, law enforcement officials revealed details of a “broad underground criminal network” when they announced that five people — including Perry’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa and several doctors — were charged in his death.
“They knew what they were doing was wrong,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said. “They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr. Perry. But they did it anyway.”
In one text message exchange, one doctor preyed on Perry’s desperation when they wrote, “I wonder how much this moron will pay” and “Lets find out.”
To help with his depression, Perry had been receiving regular ketamine infusion — in amounts authorities said were not nearly enough to kill him — from his regular doctors.
But when they refused to give in to his requests for more drugs, the actor sought out other sources.
“We are not talking about legitimate ketamine treatment,” Estrada said. “We’re talking about two doctors who abused the trust they had, abused their licences to put another person’s life at risk.”
In one instance, Perry paid $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost one of the physicians about $12.
Two of the defendants, including Iwamasa, have pleaded guilty to charges already, and a third person has agreed to plead guilty.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia is charged with seven counts of distribution of ketamine and also two charges related to allegations he falsified records after Perry’s death.
Plasencia’s attorney said he “was operating with what he thought were the best of medical intentions.”
The other person charged is Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors described as a drug dealer known in “some Hollywood circles as “the Ketamine Queen.” Sangha is accused of providing the ketamine that caused Perry’s death.
— With files from the Associated Press