Erik Fleming Sentenced in Matthew Perry Ketamine Case After Guilty Plea and Cooperation

Erik Fleming is set to be sentenced Wednesday in the Los Angeles federal courtroom of Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett. It will mark the 56-year-old's first court appearance since his role became public knowledge. He will be the fourth defendant in the case to be sentenced.

Prosecutors are asking for 2 1/2 years in prison for Fleming. Defense lawyers are asking for a sentence of three months in prison and nine months in a residential drug treatment facility.

Fleming became the first defendant to plead guilty in August 2024. He admitted to one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. He is one of five people who pleaded guilty in connection with Matthew Perry’s death.

Fleming connected Matthew Perry to Jasveen Sangha, who was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison. Fleming gave up Sangha to investigators as soon as they contacted him. New York Post reported that while his 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.

Matthew Perry had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression. 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. The friend who introduced Perry to Fleming was in a treatment facility.

Fleming was a former film and television producer. He got sober and became a drug counselor but had relapsed after the 2023 death of a beloved stepmother. Defense lawyers said in a sentencing memo that Fleming has gone to extreme lengths to atone for his criminal conduct.

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 Kenneth Iwamasa. Fleming delivered 25 vials for $6,000 four days before Perry’s death. Iwamasa would inject Perry from that batch on Oct.

28, 2023. Hours later Kenneth Iwamasa found Matthew Perry dead. 28, 2023. A medical examiner’s report found that Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine and drowning was a secondary cause.

Perry died at 54. “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.

” “I will accept my punishment with humility and spend the rest of my life working to become worthy of forgiveness,” Fleming’s letter said. His lawyers say he has undergone a “transformative” rehabilitation since Perry’s death. Perry became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” which ran from 1994 to 2004.

An auction of Matthew Perry’s valuables including “Friends” memorabilia will go to benefit the foundation founded in his name soon after his death.