Erik Fleming, a 56-year-old former film director and certified addiction counsellor, has been sentenced to two years in prison by a Los Angeles court for his role in supplying the ketamine that killed actor Matthew Perry in October 2023. Fleming acted as an intermediary between Perry and Jasveen Sangha, a drug dealer known as the "Queen of Ketamine," collecting 51 vials of the drug from Sangha and delivering them to Perry's villa. He is the fourth of five defendants to be sentenced in the case.

Perry, best known for playing Chandler Bing in the long-running American sitcom Friends, was found dead in the jacuzzi of his Los Angeles home on 28 October 2023, aged 54. An autopsy found he had died of a ketamine overdose. Perry had for years been legally prescribed the dissociative anaesthetic to treat depression and anxiety, but investigators say that when his doctor refused to increase his dose, he turned to outside suppliers. Fleming admitted he picked up the vials from Sangha and delivered them to Perry's personal assistant, who then injected the actor. He also admitted to having marked up the price of the drugs on his own initiative to pocket extra money.

Fleming's cooperation with federal prosecutors after his arrest in August 2024 appears to have significantly reduced his sentence. Without it, he could reportedly have faced four years. He was quick to name Sangha as the supplier, and pleaded guilty to charges of distribution and conspiracy. Before sentencing, he addressed the court in deeply remorseful terms. "I arranged ketamine for Matthew Perry because I needed money and thought I was doing a friend a favour," he said in a letter to the court. "I never considered the worst possible outcome. This grave mistake will haunt me forever."

Others involved in Perry's death have already received harsher punishments. Sangha was sentenced to 15 years in prison in early April. Two doctors who exploited Perry's addiction — charging him up to $2,000 per vial for drugs that cost only a few dollars — received sentences ranging from eight to 30 months. The final defendant, Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry's personal assistant who physically administered the injections, is expected to be sentenced within two weeks.

The case has drawn wide attention both for its celebrity dimension and for the broader questions it raises about the vulnerability of people with addiction histories to exploitation. Perry had spoken publicly about his decades-long struggles with substance dependence, making his death and the network of suppliers who contributed to it a particularly stark illustration of how legal medical treatments can be manipulated into fatal harm.