Doctor who helped supply Matthew Perry ketamine will plead guilty to drug charges
LOS ANGELES — A doctor charged with giving Matthew Perry ketamine in the months leading up to the 'Friends' star's overdose death has agreed to plead guilty, authorities said Monday.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They said the plea carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and Plascencia is expected to enter the plea in the coming weeks.
Plasencia and a woman accused of being a ketamine dealer had been the primary targets of the prosecution, after three other defendants, including another doctor, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for their cooperation.
Plasencia had been scheduled to start trial in August.
Perry died on Oct. 28, 2023 at age 54.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Stephen Miller's Wife Angrily Ordered Social Security Boss to Go Along With Musk's BS
Stephen Miller's wife berated the head of the Social Security Administration to promote a false claim about rampant fraud on the agency's customer service line that was being pushed by Elon Musk. Katie Miller, a former White House aide who later joined Musk's team full time, called then-acting SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek and bluntly told him to keep repeating that 40 percent of calls to the SSA were from scammers and fraudsters even though the claim had zero basis in fact. 'The number is 40 percent,' Miller told Dudek during an April 1 phone call, according to The New York Times. She insisted that Dudek stick to the figure, despite SSA staff writing a response to correct it, because Donald Trump believed Musk. 'Do not contradict the president,' she said. Katie Miller's loyalty to Musk is hardly surprising. She was reportedly with him 'almost all the time' while both were in the White House, according to The Wall Street Journal, just before Musk had a dramatic public falling-out with Trump. While officially serving as a 'special government employee,' Miller was also on Musk's payroll before exiting alongside him last month—sparking questions about where her true loyalties lay. The Times cited the false SSA scammer stat as yet another example of how Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) pushed misleading claims and fabricated data to justify its cost-cutting crusade. Frank Bisignano, who replaced Dudek as SSA commissioner, even provided some doublespeak by suggesting Musk's 40 percent figure was both inaccurate and true at the same time. 'We're going to be a fact-based, rule-based organization that can count,' Bisignano told the Times while acknowledging the 40 percent figure pushed by Musk was not true. However, in a follow-up statement, Bisignano said: 'The work that DOGE did was 100 percent accurate.' The Times suggests that Musk's 40 percent figure is a 'distortion of a completely different statistic' involving calls in which fraudsters tried to steal money by changing bank account information. In March, the SSA said 40 percent of Social Security direct deposit fraud is linked to people trying to change information over the phone. A number of MAGA figures, including Musk and Vice President JD Vance, twisted this figure to mean 40 percent of all calls to the SSA are fraudulent. SSA staff tried to amend this figure in an April 1 memo to DOGE leaders—the same day of Katie Miller's call—to state that 25 to 30 percent of allegations of direct deposit fraud are for direct deposit changes made over the telephone. According to an analysis by Nextgov/FCW, less than 1 percent of SSA calls show any potential signs of fraud. The SSA and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast. In a bizarre aside, the Times also reported that during his brief tenure atop the SSA between February and May, Dudek compared his role to that of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who saved more than 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories, as detailed in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film. 'Haven't they seen Schindler's List?' Dudek asked staff. 'Don't they know what's going on?'
Yahoo
15 minutes ago
- Yahoo
SCAR organizer arrested Saturday for alleged actions during Wednesday's protest
Jun. 16—Police on Saturday arrested an organizer for Spokane Community Against Racism for alleged actions he took Wednesday during a protest against immigration enforcement. Justice Forral, 33, is expected to face charges of third-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, according to court records. The Spokane County Sheriff's Office wrote in a news release they believe Forral grabbed a deputy's head and knocked off his hat in the midst of a group blocking a van outside of Spokane's ICE facility at 411 W. Cataldo Ave. The protest escalated from a sit-in protest started by former Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart, to a gathering of hundreds of people that police eventually ordered to disperse. When they didn't leave, police deployed smoke canisters, pepper balls and foam projectiles. Forral was first arrested Wednesday on suspicion of unlawful imprisonment and failure to disperse. Police say Forral was part of the group blocking a van from leaving, according to the news release. More than 30 people were arrested that night, according to previous reports from The Spokesman-Review. Forral was later released without having to post bail only to be arrested again Saturday morning in Riverfront Park during the Pride celebration on the new assault allegations. Forral's attorney declined to comment Monday. SCAR did not respond to request for comment.
CBS News
16 minutes ago
- CBS News
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart in critical condition after cardiac arrest, family says
Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is in critical condition after he went into cardiac arrest over the weekend, according to a statement from his ministry. Swaggart, 90, went into cardiac arrest around 8 a.m. Sunday while at his home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, his son, Donnie Swaggart, said. Donnie Swaggart said that "without a miracle, his time will be short." Donnie Swaggart said during a Sunday night service that, before EMTs arrived, he and his brother took turns giving their father chest compressions, but "he never regained consciousness." "Emergency personnel responded swiftly and were able to revive his heartbeat before transporting him to the hospital. He remains in the ICU, where he is under close medical care," a spokesperson for Jimmy Swaggart Ministries said. Jimmy Swaggart is one of the country's best-known televangelists. The founder of his eponymous ministry, he began preaching on the radio in the early 1960s. He is the founder of the Family Worship Center in Baton Rouge, where his family continues to preach, and his ministry also runs the SonLife Broadcasting Network, which broadcasts the Family Worship Center's services. Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart speaks at the funeral service for his cousin, rock and roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis, in Ferriday, La., Saturday, Nov. 5, 2022. Gerald Herbert / AP Jimmy Swaggart made national headlines in 1988 when he was photographed outside a New Orleans-area hotel with a sex worker. He tearfully admitted to sinning before his congregation during a live television broadcast, although he did not specify that he had solicited a prostitute. The incident led to him being defrocked by the Assemblies of God, although he continued to preach. Three years later, he was again found with a prostitute, this time in Indio, California, according to The Associated Press. He told his congregation that God said to him, "You tell them that Thursday morning you'll be making television programs," adding: "The Lord told me it's flat none of your business," The AP reported. Jimmy Swaggart has also recorded gospel music and is the cousin of the late rock and roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis. Swaggart spoke at Lewis' funeral, and one of Lewis' final records was a gospel album he recorded with Jimmy Swaggart that was released just a few months before Lewis' death.
