Matthew Perry's House

Author: Jewls Krueger

On October 28, 2023, actor Matthew Perry was found unresponsive in the hot tub of his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. He was 54. The Los Angeles County medical examiner later ruled that he died from the acute effects of ketamine, with drowning, coronary artery disease, and buprenorphine effects listed as contributing factors.

What first appeared to be an accidental death became a federal drug investigation. By 2026, five people had pleaded guilty and been sentenced for their roles in supplying Perry with ketamine, including his live-in personal assistant, two physicians, and a North Hollywood dealer known as the "Ketamine Queen."

Matthew Perry

Matthew Langford Perry was born on August 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and was raised mostly by his mother in Ottawa, Ontario. He moved to Los Angeles at 15 to live with his father, actor John Bennett Perry, and began acting professionally soon after.

He became internationally famous as Chandler Bing on the NBC sitcom "Friends," which ran from 1994 to 2004. He went on to earn Emmy nominations for "The West Wing" and "The Ron Clark Story," starred in films including "Fools Rush In" and "The Whole Nine Yards," and co-created and starred in several television series of his own.

Perry struggled with alcohol and drug addiction for most of his adult life and spoke about it openly. He became an advocate for recovery, received a Champion of Recovery award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2013, and opened a sober living facility in his former Malibu home. In 2022 he published a memoir, "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing." He purchased the Pacific Palisades home in 2020 for $6 million.

Matthew Perry's Death

According to the autopsy report, Perry went out to play pickleball around 11 a.m. on October 28, 2023, and returned home about two hours later. His assistant then left to run errands. When he returned, he found Perry unresponsive in the backyard hot tub. Perry was pronounced dead at 4:17 p.m.

The autopsy report noted that Perry had reportedly been sober for 19 months and had been receiving ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety, with his last treatment about a week and a half before his death. The medical examiner concluded that the high level of ketamine in his blood could not have come from that treatment, since the drug's half-life is only a few hours. The death was ruled an accident, and how he obtained the ketamine was listed as unknown.

The Investigation

In May 2024, the Los Angeles Police Department opened an investigation into how Perry obtained the ketamine that killed him. The LAPD worked with the Drug Enforcement Administration and the United States Postal Inspection Service. In March 2024, law enforcement had already searched the North Hollywood residence of Jasveen Sangha, where they found 79 vials of liquid ketamine, thousands of pressed methamphetamine pills, and other drugs.

On August 15, 2024, federal prosecutors announced charges against five people. According to court documents, Perry's live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, injected Perry with at least three shots of ketamine on the day he died. When LAPD officers questioned him that day, Iwamasa gave them a list of Perry's doctors and prescriptions but intentionally left out ketamine, and he described a timeline that concealed the injections. Prosecutors said he also removed ketamine bottles and syringes from the home before calling a co-conspirator to say he had cleaned up the scene.

The Defendants

Salvador Plasencia, a physician who ran a Calabasas clinic, distributed 20 vials and multiple tablets of ketamine to Perry and Iwamasa and taught Iwamasa how to inject the drug. He charged a total of $57,000. Prosecutors said he did not provide the fatal dose. He pleaded guilty to four counts of ketamine distribution and was sentenced on December 3, 2025, to 30 months in prison.

Mark Chavez, a former San Diego physician, operated a ketamine clinic and sold ketamine to Plasencia. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine and was sentenced in December 2025 to eight months of home detention, 300 hours of community service, and three years of probation.

Jasveen Sangha, a North Hollywood dealer prosecutors called the "Ketamine Queen," supplied the ketamine that killed Perry. In October 2023, she and Erik Fleming sold 51 vials of ketamine that were passed to Iwamasa. She also admitted to selling ketamine to Cody McLaury, who died of an overdose hours later in August 2019. She pleaded guilty to five federal charges and was sentenced on April 8, 2026, to 15 years in federal prison.

Erik Fleming, a licensed drug addiction counselor, brokered the sales between Sangha and Iwamasa and marked up the price of the vials. He was the first defendant to plead guilty and cooperated with investigators, which his attorney said led directly to Sangha. He was sentenced on May 13, 2026, to 24 months in prison.

Kenneth Iwamasa had known Perry since 1992 and became his live-in assistant in 2022. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death and was sentenced on May 27, 2026, to 41 months in federal prison and fined $10,000. He was the fifth and final defendant sentenced in the case.

Matthew Perry's House Today

In October 2024, almost exactly a year after Perry's death, the four-bedroom mid-century modern home sold in an off-market deal for $8.55 million to Anita Verma-Lallian, an Arizona-based film producer and real estate developer who said she planned to use it as a vacation home. She held a Hindu blessing ceremony at the property and said she intended to keep some of Perry's design elements.

The house sits in Pacific Palisades, the coastal neighborhood on Los Angeles' Westside that was heavily damaged by the Palisades Fire in January 2025. The home survived the fire, which Verma-Lallian confirmed on Instagram, crediting firefighters and neighbors.

The home is a private residence on a residential street. Visitors should stay on public roads and sidewalks, avoid trespassing or photographing into the property, and refrain from contacting the owners or neighbors. This is a neighborhood still recovering from the fire, and many residents have lost homes of their own.