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Hollywood Demons (2025) Season 2 Episode 4
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00:00:12The source of drugs that celebrities use is probably not what you imagine.
00:00:18Most of the celebrities that you've heard of who have died were given the drugs by a physician.
00:00:33There are willing physicians ready to treat special people and open their prescription
00:00:38pad.
00:00:41The scary thing is they took an oath to do no harm.
00:00:44He was known as Doc Hollywood.
00:00:47The physician added to his demise.
00:00:52Just because it's coming from a doctor doesn't mean it's safe.
00:00:54Without a prescription.
00:00:55I wonder how much this moron will pay.
00:01:02Attaining all your dreams like that isn't necessarily a good thing.
00:01:14I wanted to be different.
00:01:16There was no prescription medications without a prescription.
00:01:21This is a tragedy for all of us.
00:01:36Why is this important for you?
00:01:38I like coming at it from the standpoint of the providers and how f***ed up they are.
00:01:43I don't like blaming the patients.
00:01:44I don't like the patients are...
00:01:46They're doing what they're doing.
00:01:47They're patients.
00:01:48But then when the doctors treat them improperly, that's where I lose my mind.
00:01:53Dr. Drew interviewed Take One, A.B.
00:01:55Common Marks.
00:01:58My mother was an opera singer who ended up singing with the big bands and then doing sort of B
00:02:05-movies in the early 1950s.
00:02:15This was a whole period of her life that she hid from us and I did not discover until she
00:02:21was about 80 years of age.
00:02:23But there was a lot going on around this time.
00:02:30My mom told this strange story she was performing in Las Vegas and she started having anxiety with the workload
00:02:37and this doctor showed up to relieve her anxiety and started giving her injections.
00:02:43And the physician administering that medication was Dr. Max Jacobson, also known as Dr. Feelgood.
00:02:51He became known for prescribing these vitamin cocktails that were a mix of a lot of different things and not
00:03:00just vitamins.
00:03:01I mean, they had enzymes, animal parts, bone marrow, and amphetamines.
00:03:10Amphetamine causes elevated mood, escalation, lack of sleep, ultimately manic psychosis.
00:03:18And if you use enough amphetamine, anybody will become psychotic.
00:03:22It is a very dangerous medication and people can then, as they try to avoid the withdrawal, easily compulsively pursue
00:03:31it and develop addiction.
00:03:33And this was the pep shot of the day.
00:03:38And Dr. Jacobson made it his business to administer this widely and especially to special patients, celebrities, politicians.
00:03:50John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and my mother.
00:04:01So after God knows how long of taking this, she finished her job in Las Vegas, came home, and promptly
00:04:08went into withdrawal, which is a miserable condition.
00:04:13Agitation, mood lability, sense of desperation, seizures.
00:04:18She went to her doctor, not understanding what was going on.
00:04:21She didn't know what she had been given, and he immediately recognized what it was.
00:04:25That's amazing to me, that in 1955 or whatever that was, a doctor knew how to treat that and knew
00:04:31what it was quickly.
00:04:33She made it through.
00:04:35But imagine the potential harm there.
00:04:37That's just one example.
00:04:40You know, there's a very, very dangerous story with John F. Kennedy, where he, at the hands of Dr. Feelgood,
00:04:48developed an amphetamine psychosis.
00:04:52And it is documented that he threw off his clothes and was literally doing cartwheels down a hotel hallway in
00:05:00a psychotic state.
00:05:02This was around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
00:05:05Imagine if he had been in that state when that was happening.
00:05:08Thank God, a psychiatrist came over, quickly identified what was going on, and told the president he must never see
00:05:17this doctor again.
00:05:20There's a few people I have just massive disdain for, and he's one of them.
00:05:24It's disgusting.
00:05:29In 1973, Dr. Jacobson was charged with unprofessional conduct and fraud, and in 1975, he relinquished his license.
00:05:39Then, ultimately, he passed away in December of 1979, leaving destruction in his wake.
00:05:46I'm talking about all the people he strung out on drugs, all the people that died of addiction.
00:05:50There's just so many, so many adverse events, potentially, that he was a part of.
00:05:56It's almost hard to measure.
00:05:59I've been an entertainment reporter and journalist for almost the last 15 years in Los Angeles.
00:06:05I've covered a lot of different Hollywood stories in my time.
00:06:09You see the glitz and the glamour, and you also see the darker side of the business, too.
00:06:16When a celebrity dies of an overdose, it's very easy to criticize a celebrity whenever they get caught up in
00:06:23addiction.
00:06:24But the aspect of these cases that doesn't get highlighted enough is accountability.
00:06:29What surprised me the most when researching celebrity overdose deaths is the number of doctors, medical board-approved doctors, that
00:06:38are involved in these casualties.
00:06:41Because the reality is, these celebrities don't just create the drugs themselves.
00:06:46They have to get the drugs from someplace.
00:06:57I was a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration for 30 years.
00:07:03Well, there's no doubt that it's different, working in L.A. as a DEA agent.
00:07:09I think Hollywood creates these type of doctors.
00:07:13They're making tons of money.
00:07:15They like the Celebrity Association.
00:07:19And with celebrities and the addiction, I think it's more a lifestyle issue, and there's a lot of pressure in
00:07:29Hollywood.
00:07:31A lot of pressure to keep up with these production deadlines and to keep up with your image.
00:07:37And so I think that's just indicative of an environment that supports this type of drug use.
00:07:49So these are the three sort of big categories of dangerous addictive drugs that are pharmaceutical and being prescribed by
00:07:56physicians.
00:07:57The commonly addictive pharmaceuticals were the opiates and opioids, the painkillers like Vicodin, Percodin, Percocet, Oxycontin.
00:08:05Then there was the anti-anxiety medications that were being used to treat the mild opiate withdrawal symptoms that people
00:08:11were having.
00:08:11That's why everyone on opiates ended up on the benzodiazepines, which is the Valium, the Ativan, the Librium, those sorts
00:08:18of drugs, Xanax.
00:08:19And that includes sleeping medication like Ambien.
00:08:22And then the stimulants.
00:08:25Stimulants get going when young celebrities, particularly female, will get going on them to try to lose weight.
00:08:33When the prescription drug thing came along, I was a big proponent of hanging these doctors in the public square,
00:08:40making an example out of them.
00:08:46I didn't know anything about prescription drugs.
00:08:50But I got assigned to my partner.
00:08:54She was well-trained in prescription drugs.
00:08:56And so the two of us worked together on these cases.
00:09:00There was one case which was shocking.
00:09:03This was not publicized.
00:09:05You know, we didn't list celebrity names.
00:09:07But it changed my perspective.
00:09:09He was someone that we commonly referred to as Doc Hollywood.
00:09:16We worked with a lot of local police departments.
00:09:18I remember being in the office and getting the call from the detective at Redondo Beach Police Department.
00:09:24He said, hey, we're buying Adderall off Craigslist.
00:09:31And they're saying it's coming from a doctor.
00:09:34From a doctor, Nathan Kummerle.
00:09:37He was a psychiatrist.
00:09:38He was not affiliated with any large facility.
00:09:43His office was in West Hollywood on Sunset.
00:09:47And so that's when we made the determination to start looking at sending an undercover in with the informant.
00:09:58This is Dr. Kummerle's office right here.
00:10:00This would be the front door.
00:10:02His office was up on the third floor.
00:10:06This is the alley behind the building right here.
00:10:10And there's a back door to this that leads you into the building.
00:10:12So we did see a lot of what appeared to be drug-seeking people coming in and out the back.
00:10:18And we started to recognize the people that were coming in and out the back door as celebrities, which isn't
00:10:24really normal.
00:10:25You know, normally patients come in and out the front door, not the back door.
00:10:31So during the first undercover buy, unlike other doctor's offices where you have to call, make an appointment, you just
00:10:37walk in.
00:10:43And then they got in to see Kummerle getting the Adderall prescriptions.
00:10:49I mean, normal people go to the doctor, tell about their conditions, and then the doctor determines what's prescribed.
00:10:54Where with these pill mills, you go in and ask for what you want.
00:11:06When you go to the doctor's office, you typically don't order off a menu.
00:11:10And there was no medical exam.
00:11:12There was no discussion of medical history.
00:11:16And so our undercover paid $150 in cash for the prescriptions and walked out.
00:11:27We did another undercover buy, and this one, you know, was within a couple weeks.
00:11:33And this time we instructed the undercover officer to ask for a prescription in his brother's name.
00:11:39And so Kummerle agreed for the extra $50 to write him a prescription for his brother, who was not present,
00:11:46which is clearly outside the usual course of professional practice.
00:11:51A month later, we decided to do another undercover buy.
00:11:59They go in, and there's paperwork.
00:12:03We told him to just write, you know, squiggly lines, but don't write anything that makes really any sense.
00:12:13And so an office manager for Dr. Kummerle took the paperwork from him and just filled it out himself.
00:12:21And so it was clear that this paperwork was more of a CYA and had nothing to do with any
00:12:28medical evaluation.
00:12:31And during this visit, lots of strange things happening.
00:12:34Okay, so then I'm going to do the, um, 30 twice a day, is that right?
00:12:38Yeah.
00:12:39Okay, perfect.
00:12:39Including, you know, construction workers being allowed to come in to the room.
00:12:45May it be a shining star.
00:12:49It was clear that he was under the influence of something, and that his behavior was becoming more and more
00:12:54erratic.
00:13:04And in my experience, most of these guys that hand out drugs to drug addicts are themselves drug addicts.
00:13:11It's like more of the range where I'm, I'm proud of, right?
00:13:15You're going to be a hobby.
00:13:16You can't be an orc.
00:13:19He did everything from saying he was a writer and a psychiatrist and a predictor of the future.
00:13:26I masterminded it with this, it's kind of like evil genius.
00:13:30So he was not only selling Adderall, he was probably one of his own best customers.
00:13:34I have the power of all the doctors.
00:13:41We decided to go in and do another undercover buy.
00:13:45We were trying to demonstrate that this isn't a one-off.
00:13:48This isn't just one prescription.
00:13:50This is numerous red flags associated with every prescription that's being written.
00:13:57And during this visit, Kummer Lee was talking about different celebrities.
00:14:04And so we started going, wow, this is going to be a much bigger investigation.
00:14:09What's your death?
00:14:10The office manager comes into the room and, and whispers something to Kummer Lee.
00:14:18Kummer Lee tells our undercover that there's a celebrity in the office.
00:14:22Can't say who it is, but says...
00:14:25I can't tell you.
00:14:29She's on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine.
00:14:31There you go.
00:14:38I can't tell you.
00:14:39She's on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine right now.
00:14:44She's on the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine right now.
00:14:47I'm looking at the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine on the day of that tape I just viewed.
00:14:55And it was Amanda Bynes.
00:14:57She stated in several interviews that she had a problem with Adderall and was addicted to it.
00:15:08She initially had started for weight loss and then couldn't stop.
00:15:12Amanda Bynes was known as a breakout star on Nickelodeon shows like All That and The Amanda Show.
00:15:18Later, she became notorious for troubling headlines.
00:15:22So he was not protecting his patient privacy.
00:15:26It was this, this bragging, this grandiose ego that we saw displayed.
00:15:30And his patient list had several other celebrities coming here because a lot of celebrities were taking Adderall to stay
00:15:40thin.
00:15:40And then they continued to take more and more Adderall because it helped with their long 16-hour days.
00:15:49I think he fancied himself to be the psychiatrist to the stars.
00:15:54He was the number one prescriber of Adderall.
00:15:57And this is back in 2008, 2009, a situation where he wrote probably three times as many prescriptions as the
00:16:04number two person.
00:16:05The celebrity aspect was just kind of an obstacle that was constantly over our shoulder.
00:16:12With the celebrities came fame.
00:16:14With fame came public focus.
00:16:17With that public focus came attention.
00:16:20And the undercover cases work better when we don't have that attention.
00:16:32With Nathan Coomerle, it was, for him, in my opinion, all about being close to celebrity and kind of getting
00:16:39in those celebrity circles.
00:16:41And in his mind, perhaps, becoming a celebrity himself by being their doctor.
00:16:49I actually published a study about narcissistic traits and addiction.
00:16:55And one of the most dangerous things for public figures is physicians who bask in the narcissistic glow of celebrity.
00:17:02I'm making that patient feel better.
00:17:04I have this special patient.
00:17:06Only I know how to help them.
00:17:07And that's hubris.
00:17:08That's narcissism.
00:17:09It's basking in the narcissistic glow.
00:17:11And it's the opposite of the practice of medicine.
00:17:15That, to me, is just a stunning abuse of the trust that we place in our health care providers.
00:17:24They take a Hippocratic oath to protect patients and to look out for their best interest.
00:17:31And when they just completely trample over that trust, that's an egregious violation.
00:17:52This was my lowest sentence of any doctor case I investigated, either in Texas or California.
00:17:57I don't think that sends a message that the top prescriber for the entire state of California for Adderall received
00:18:06time served of approximately 10 months.
00:18:15Here's a thing that I haven't really touched on.
00:18:18And his juries have a hard time understanding how a doctor would risk his entire career to write a prescription
00:18:27drug outside the scope of a legitimate medical practice.
00:18:31Juries have a hard time believing that.
00:18:33And, you know, what always happens is they lose their medical license temporarily, they lose their ability to prescribe drugs
00:18:40from DEA temporarily, but they always get it back.
00:18:50This was kind of a perfect storm, and the medical board, up until that point, had really never had to
00:18:56deal with criminal cases against doctors.
00:19:08We are supposed to be driven by the priority of do no harm.
00:19:15I started to notice it got worse when the opioid epidemic was upon us.
00:19:26So in early 2000s is where the rise of the companies that were selling these opioids as the end-all,
00:19:34be-all, the cure, and it's not addictive, right?
00:19:37And so there was a lot of kind of this false marketing out there.
00:19:40We didn't realize how dangerous it was because it was in a prescription bottle.
00:19:46And so there was this just lack of understanding that just because it's coming from a doctor doesn't mean it's
00:19:51safe, doesn't mean it was legitimately prescribed.
00:19:55There was an incident with Dr. Jules Luceman.
00:19:59He came on everyone's radar because of Winona Ryder.
00:20:04A lot of us know Winona Ryder because of Edward Scissorhands.
00:20:10The iconic Tim Burton film with Johnny Depp.
00:20:15Today we know Winona Ryder because of Stranger Things, and this was a major comeback for her, especially because she
00:20:24had a huge stain on her career from her shoplifting incident.
00:20:35December 2001, Winona Ryder was arrested for stealing $5,500 from Saks worth of designer clothing.
00:20:46Why would Winona Ryder, America's sweetheart, be stealing from Saks Fifth Avenue?
00:20:53I mean, can't you afford to buy whatever you want from Saks Fifth Avenue?
00:20:57Winona, how are you doing?
00:20:58Winona, how are you feeling, Stag?
00:21:00So, this label, kleptomaniac, gets thrown around in relation to Winona Ryder.
00:21:06I immediately announced that this is opiate addiction.
00:21:11Immediately.
00:21:12Because one thing my female opiate-using patients were doing frequently back then was in order to get that endorphin
00:21:21rush that they were used to getting from the drugs, they will do sensational things, particularly stealing.
00:21:26After the felony preliminary hearing today conducted in Division I of the Beverly Hills Courthouse, Judge Fox held the defendant
00:21:34to answer on four felony charges.
00:21:37Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting, and she had multiple prescription bottles in her purse.
00:21:41I'm telling you right now, there was no possession of prescription medications without a prescription.
00:21:46She essentially had Demerol, which is an incredibly powerful opiate, and then various forms of Vicodin and Percocet, Percodam.
00:21:55And one of the prescribers was a Dr. Jules Mark Lussman.
00:22:01So, Dr. Lussman is a plastic surgeon, just basically running a medical practice from his home.
00:22:09You know, his bedroom was the exam room, his living room was the waiting room, he would request payments in
00:22:15cash.
00:22:17Dr. Lussman was known to charge large amounts of money to make after-hours calls, two celebrities, two special people,
00:22:25often giving them infusions of substances, opiates.
00:22:28And he did have Winona Ryder's medical file.
00:22:32He was taking care of her, under the name, however, of Emily Thompson.
00:22:37Over several months, Dr. Lussman prescribed multiple different opiates, and some under the name Emily Thompson.
00:22:43Not something that doctors are supposed to do, and I've seen it in a bunch of cases, because they say
00:22:48they're protecting the privacy of the patient, etc.
00:22:51But it's not legitimate, and it can cause significant problems, because no other doctor then will know that this patient
00:22:58is taking that drug.
00:23:22After that, he went to South Africa and started practicing medicine there.
00:23:26Had he stayed here in California and waited out his probation time, he would have been relicensed by the state.
00:23:31It happens all the time.
00:23:32There's constantly second and third chances for doctors who are in similar situations like that.
00:23:39It's important to talk about these cases, because the doctors who are enabling these addictions need to be stopped.
00:23:50A lot of addictions started with legitimate prescribed medical use of opiate drugs.
00:23:56Some kind of injury that opiate drugs are normally used to treat those injuries for pain.
00:24:05The opioid crisis was way underway, and I was just fighting it.
00:24:09And at the time, being told I was old-fashioned, I was interested in patient suffering, I was opiophobic, I
00:24:16didn't know what I was talking about.
00:24:17While my patients were dying constantly at the hands of my peers.
00:24:22Mike Starr, Alice in Chains, we got him sober for a year.
00:24:27A miracle.
00:24:28This guy was a lifetime drug addict.
00:24:30No pain, no nothing, starting to thrive.
00:24:33He moved to Utah with a band.
00:24:35One day, he calls me and goes, Jerome, I'm having back pain.
00:24:39And I said, Mike, please, whatever you do, do not tell a doctor that you have pain.
00:24:46Please, two weeks later, dead, pain pill, benzodiazepine at the bedside.
00:24:55Jeff Conway, chronic pain patient, got him off drugs.
00:24:59But of course, he goes back to the doctor to say, why do you listen to these people?
00:25:02You just need to take these medicines.
00:25:03I told you you're going to need to take them the rest of your life.
00:25:07Two weeks later, dead.
00:25:09I saw other celebrities die from deadly combination of drugs mixed with anti-anxiety medication.
00:25:16Heath Ledger was prescribed a ton of drugs by a doctor and stopped breathing.
00:25:22Anna Nicole Smith, I was singing it from every hilltop that you are watching a woman die and nobody seemed
00:25:30to care.
00:25:33We just roll over these celebrity deaths.
00:25:39My cousin was prison.
00:25:41A lot of people are afraid to say this because they probably get called crazy.
00:25:48When he died, that disturbed me to the core.
00:25:53I think somebody should be held accountable for killing somebody.
00:26:05I'm from Minneapolis, born 1956.
00:26:10Prince and I are grandmothers and sisters.
00:26:14We got earrings in our ears at eight years old.
00:26:18See, I have four in this ear and one in this ear.
00:26:21And people used to tease us and call us all kinds of names.
00:26:27But we were some rockers for real, so I will tell you the whole story.
00:26:31Now, this is a famous story about our group, the first group that everybody knows all of us from.
00:26:36It's called Grand Central.
00:26:37It was me on drums, Prince Nelson on guitar.
00:26:41Anything Prince wanted to do, he would do.
00:26:44That's the way this man was on his music and anything else that we did.
00:26:48The freedom that I had came from a long, hard fight of trying to get them to understand that I
00:26:56wanted to be different.
00:26:57Everybody knows he was a great artist, great musician, a true fighter, creative genius.
00:27:05There'll never be anything like it.
00:27:08Everybody knows that.
00:27:12But to me, that's my cousin.
00:27:20Excuse me for a moment.
00:27:33Our whole family was proud of her.
00:27:53This is Jimmy Kimmel at a stage behind his studio, and he'd occasionally have concerts out there.
00:28:01And this evening, it was Prince.
00:28:03And my wife and I went there to see him.
00:28:06Did you look a fan?
00:28:07Oh, I was a fan.
00:28:11I just liked the funk quality that he had.
00:28:14I just thought it was great.
00:28:16I would die for you.
00:28:19Ooh, darling, if you want me to.
00:28:22Ooh, I would die for you.
00:28:26Ooh.
00:28:27Those little who's.
00:28:28That was so Prince.
00:28:30He was authentically him.
00:28:33He had a connection to people that spanned countries and cities and demographics and races.
00:28:43Prince spoke a universal language that we all share.
00:28:49But we really didn't know that he was struggling with health issues leading up to his death.
00:28:55Supposedly, Prince complained of hip pain.
00:28:57Although he had lots of complaints of pain, there was never any hints of anything inhibiting his performances.
00:29:05And one of the things to treat the pain was an opiate pain reliever.
00:29:09So if he was in pain, my hips are so bad, I need surgery, and now I'm hooked on opioids.
00:29:16Can you imagine Prince telling people, you know, they can't wait to pounce on him.
00:29:21So I knew he was in the spot.
00:29:23His legacy and everything.
00:29:25Prince, we're not done.
00:29:26Prince, we're not done.
00:29:27Prince, get back.
00:29:48Prince plays his final show on April 14, 2016, and it was clear that he was not doing well.
00:29:56He looks extremely thin.
00:29:58There's no man that should be weighing 90-something pounds.
00:30:01That was horrifying to me.
00:30:08And the next day, he was on a private flight from Atlanta to his home in Minneapolis.
00:30:12Breaking news came on and said the plane had to do an emergency landing.
00:30:16And this is what got me when they said they gave him Narcan.
00:30:21He didn't say anything else behind it.
00:30:23I was going, what the hell is Narcan?
00:30:25One of my friends called me up and he told me, man, Narcan brings a person back from opioid overdoses.
00:30:31I was like, what?
00:30:32What I remember most vividly was I was telling everybody that this is addiction.
00:30:37I knew it.
00:30:38I could see it.
00:30:39And I knew he's in serious danger.
00:30:40But Sarah, here's what I know.
00:30:42Anytime a publicist says dehydration, don't listen to it.
00:30:45Because adult, otherwise healthy young males don't get dehydration, number one.
00:30:48And number two, he didn't have the flu.
00:30:50Flu doesn't come and go.
00:30:51But drug withdrawal feels like the flu.
00:30:54I was saying it on HLN.
00:30:56I was saying it repeatedly.
00:30:57This is what they're going to die of if they're young and healthy.
00:30:59Eight minutes up the road.
00:31:02Paisley Park is eight minutes.
00:31:04We looked this up.
00:31:04It is eight minutes from Hazleton.
00:31:06The fact that no one was attending to it, I thought, was a scandal.
00:31:10And he lived minutes from Hazleton, from one of the premier treatment centers in the country.
00:31:15And I kept saying, throw him in the trunk and take him to Hazleton.
00:31:19Do what you got to do.
00:31:20This guy's going to die.
00:31:22Instead, a doctor named Howard Kornfeld, who did some addiction treatment, sent Suboxone.
00:31:30Suboxone is a replacement therapy for opiates of various types.
00:31:34It also is an excellent treatment for chronic pain.
00:31:37But Kornfeld couldn't come.
00:31:38He was tied up.
00:31:39He could not go to Minnesota.
00:31:41So he sent his son to Minnesota to see Prince.
00:31:45Scandalous.
00:31:46Some guy flies out from San Francisco, wild, taking drugs across state lines in a backpack.
00:31:52This was insanity.
00:31:53Hazleton was right down the street.
00:31:55Throw him in the car, go to Hazleton, get treatment, sit.
00:32:17Oh, my wife called me.
00:32:22I fell to my knees.
00:32:25That feeling overwhelmed me.
00:32:27I couldn't even breathe.
00:32:32What I remember most vividly was Van Jones on my HLN program breaking down and sobbing at his friend's death.
00:32:41There were so many things that he was trying to do now.
00:32:50And he cared so much just about ordinary people.
00:32:55You've seen the streets of when he passed away, of downtown Minneapolis?
00:32:59Was in one fight.
00:33:04In New York.
00:33:07Fans.
00:33:09L.A.
00:33:11Packed in the streets.
00:33:12That was Prince.
00:33:14There were a lot of rumors and speculation swirling after Prince's death.
00:33:18The decision was made to process the scene.
00:33:21One of them was that his death was linked to an addiction to painkillers.
00:33:26Results from that autopsy may take several weeks.
00:33:29For sure, Prince believed he was taking a legitimate pharmaceutical pill.
00:33:33But reality is Prince died of deception.
00:33:42The autopsy lists accidental fentanyl ingestion as the cause of death.
00:33:48Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.
00:33:55We used to use it mostly in ICUs.
00:33:58Used as part of a regime for anesthesia, like when you're going under anesthesia.
00:34:03Fentanyl is many times more powerful than heroin.
00:34:06Like 50 times more powerful than heroin.
00:34:08It's cheap to get and incredibly addictive.
00:34:13But in 2016, fentanyl was rarely mentioned.
00:34:16It was heroin, Vicodin, Oxycontin.
00:34:18Those are the opiates you heard about.
00:34:21Prince was probably one of the first celebrity people that was victim of fentanyl here in the United States.
00:34:26Two milligrams or more is a potentially deadly dose.
00:34:28And that's like the tip of a pencil.
00:34:30That's really all it could take to kill you.
00:34:32They said that you can have a little grain about this big and you can die from it.
00:34:37And they said he had enough in him to kill the elephant.
00:34:53So because of the nature of Prince's death, police officers decided to serve a search warrant there.
00:34:59And they found a lot of drugs in the house, in all different places around the house, and all packaged
00:35:05in a way to kind of try to conceal what they actually were.
00:35:11Dr. Schulenberg's name, one of Prince's doctors, his name came up pretty quickly because of some of the prescriptions found
00:35:17in the house.
00:35:20This is surveillance video of Prince visiting his physician the day before he died.
00:35:27That's Dr. Schulenberg.
00:35:30Uh, seeing Prince with his bodyguard.
00:35:34This is Dr. Schulenberg.
00:35:38Dr. Michael Schulenberg prescribed Vicodin for Prince, but in the name of his bodyguard.
00:35:45That is unethical.
00:35:47That is fraud.
00:35:48This is that weird thing again.
00:35:49I've seen doctors go, oh, oh, you don't want to be public about this?
00:35:53We'll just use somebody else's name.
00:35:54That is bullshit.
00:35:55Doctors should never do that.
00:36:06That disturbed me to the core because I was going, why do you have to, if Prince is in pain
00:36:12and he really needed something to help him, why do we have to, why do you have to forage and
00:36:17lie and do stuff?
00:36:18Why not be upfront about it?
00:36:21However, the pill that killed Prince or contributed to his death was clearly not something prescribed by Dr. Schulenberg because
00:36:29he was prescribing pharmaceutical oxycodone, which does not have fentanyl.
00:36:33So where did the fentanyl come from?
00:36:37While the police searched the house, they did find counterfeit pills at Prince's house.
00:36:45Sometimes people will refer to them as prescription drugs laced with fentanyl.
00:36:49And I really push back.
00:36:51That's not the case.
00:36:52The only active ingredient in these pills is fentanyl.
00:36:55It's not like someone took a real Vicodin or a real oxycodone and added fentanyl to it.
00:37:01It's just much cheaper to make a pill that looks like those other pills and do it just with fentanyl.
00:37:05So Prince believed he was taking a legitimate pharmaceutical pill, probably a Vicodin or an oxycodone.
00:37:11He didn't know that he was taking a pill where fentanyl was the active ingredient.
00:37:18Man.
00:37:21Yeah, it's a lot.
00:37:23Heck yeah, it's a lot.
00:37:26They showed us what the pills looked like.
00:37:29Next to each other, a real one, fake, looked exactly alike.
00:37:36There was no way Prince Nuti was taken.
00:37:38There's just, you, he'd have fooled everybody.
00:37:41The investigators tried to look at phone records.
00:37:44They did search warrants to look at who people were calling up until Prince's death.
00:37:50They looked at the bodyguard's phone.
00:37:53The reality is they never found out who supplied the fentanyl to Prince.
00:37:57This is the death of one of the most high-profile musicians to ever live.
00:38:03And we still don't know who killed him.
00:38:04We don't know how he got these pills.
00:38:07We wanted the people that did this to admit it and take responsibility for it.
00:38:17That has to happen.
00:38:24There were many physicians along the way who enabled the addiction that led to his death.
00:38:29So there's, there's, there's plenty of blame to go around here.
00:38:32And yet we live in a world where the addict gets blamed for their disease and even their death.
00:38:39There are a lot of celebrity deaths that we've never solved, right?
00:38:42That we don't know who is responsible.
00:38:44There's been no accountability.
00:38:46If we held suppliers accountable for the deaths downstream from the drugs they supply,
00:38:54there would be a lot of people in serious trouble that skate these days.
00:39:02I would like to see that.
00:39:03I would love to see that.
00:39:05But that, that would be, it's, it's, look, it's murder.
00:39:14As a federal prosecutor, I worked at the U.S. Attorney's Office in what's called the Central
00:39:18District of California.
00:39:20We serve the largest population.
00:39:23Had you worked any cases where doctors had been involved in like illegally prescribing
00:39:27their patients or illegally giving medication to patients that were?
00:39:31Yes, is the short answer.
00:39:34So I was the chief of the criminal division at the time at the U.S. Attorney's Office.
00:39:39And the lead prosecutor on the case, Ian Yanetlo, came in one day and said he got a call from
00:39:45LAPD.
00:39:48They told Ian about the significant case.
00:39:52In that case was the death of celebrity Matthew Perry.
00:40:08Matthew Perry was most known for his role as Chandler Bang on Friends.
00:40:13Weddings are a great place to meet women.
00:40:14And when I dance, I look like this.
00:40:20Of course, I watched Friends on right after Seinfeld back in the day.
00:40:24It was impossible to miss Friends.
00:40:26It was everywhere.
00:40:27We're friends.
00:40:28I mean, we're six different people that seem to gel pretty well.
00:40:31We're talking about a show that shaped hairstyles.
00:40:35It shaped language that we still use today.
00:40:39Are you guys all actually friends?
00:40:40Yes, yes.
00:40:41For the last time, we are all actually good friends.
00:40:44It's one of the most successful shows in the history of television.
00:40:49Was there something to think about this one?
00:40:51It's not this one.
00:40:52It's really...
00:40:52No, nothing special.
00:40:55No, yeah.
00:40:56We had a really good idea that this had a very good shot at at least having a chance at
00:41:02being successful.
00:41:03That show, that role was so larger than life.
00:41:07It really eclipsed his career and was the role that most people think of when they think of his name.
00:41:15I follow that to a freakish degree, actually, because the numbers are actually good.
00:41:21And all my other shows, I think the last show I did, we were ranked 83rd out of 83 shows
00:41:27every time.
00:41:27So now that there's good news, I call up and tell everybody.
00:41:30Matthew Perry was a beloved actor, and he had bad addiction.
00:41:37I only knew about it from talk in the treatment community.
00:41:41People were asking me for, you know, advice and things.
00:41:44Tell me what it's all about.
00:41:45Well, it's all about people in their 30s and their 40s who are kind of broken people.
00:41:50I play a character named Jack, who is a drunk.
00:41:54The research I've done, and I have the only published literature on this, suggests that typically people that pursue celebrity
00:42:01have childhood trauma.
00:42:03There are some experiences that are in my own life that are shared in the play.
00:42:07With Matthew Perry, we don't know what the issue was, really.
00:42:11I grew up in Canada with my mom, so I didn't really see my dad a whole lot.
00:42:17Wake up with Old Spice.
00:42:19He was the Old Spice man.
00:42:22And the way I would see my dad was on television.
00:42:24He would, like, call me up and say, so I'm getting shot on Mannix on Thursday night, so tune in.
00:42:29And I think I generated kind of a respect for the business that way, because it was through the television
00:42:33that I got to see my dad.
00:42:37That aloneness and emptiness, that injury and that deficiency that that creates, people try to fill that with performing and
00:42:49an audience and celebrity, and it doesn't work.
00:42:52And they think fame is supposed to solve that trauma, which it does not, and provides ample opportunity for the
00:42:59addiction to flourish.
00:43:01I've interviewed, actually, a lot of the cast members from the Friends show, and when did it sink in that
00:43:07your lives weren't quite going to be the same?
00:43:09Well, I guess the show really became huge in between the first and second season in that summer.
00:43:17I went, whoa, this is a little bit more than a hit show.
00:43:20This is something that people are really taking an interest in, and it's terrific.
00:43:25That is a great idea.
00:43:28In 1997, while also filming Friends, Matthew Perry was in a movie called Fools Rush In.
00:43:34Can you imagine?
00:43:35Oh!
00:43:38A lot of the humor came from this dynamic between this white guy.
00:43:45Lucy, you got some explaining, Lucy.
00:43:49Oh, my God.
00:43:51Interacting with a Mexican family.
00:43:53He fell into some cactus. A lot of cactus.
00:43:56During the filming, he, unfortunately, was in a jet ski accident as a result of his back injury.
00:44:03And like so many people at that period of history, were given tremendous doses of opioids for a minor pain
00:44:11syndrome.
00:44:12And if you have the potential for addiction, now it's going to start.
00:44:18Now it's going to escalate.
00:44:20The public, during the last years of Friends, you were starting to hear about something.
00:44:25Something was up.
00:44:27I remember seeing Matthew Perry struggle very publicly with addiction throughout the years.
00:44:34What's up, Matthew?
00:44:35Hey.
00:44:36How are you, man?
00:44:36Over the course of 30 years, Matthew Perry would undergo about 15 rehab stints and spend roughly $9 million on
00:44:46recovery efforts.
00:44:47Frankly, it's an embarrassment.
00:44:48It should not cost a lot of money.
00:44:51It should not cost a lot of money.
00:44:52You're wasting the money.
00:44:57I grew up seeing these celebrity stories and going into rehab, coming out, going back into rehab, coming out.
00:45:03And in my head, you just thought, okay, well, this is something that happens to celebrities.
00:45:07And you kind of had the sense of, well, they're probably not trying hard enough.
00:45:12But in fact, as I started learning more about it, the financial motivations of the people who own some of
00:45:17these luxury rehab centers is not necessarily to get these people well, but to actually have them keep coming back
00:45:23so that they can continue making money off of them.
00:45:27So the reality is that these luxury rehab centers, they are made to attract these high-end clients.
00:45:33So they have equine therapy, they have horses, they have sound baths and, like, organic chefs.
00:45:40And they say, like, celebrities can have their phones, they can use their laptop.
00:45:44Someone charged $80,000 a month, which is a lot of money.
00:45:48And you expect when you pay that much as top-notch medical care that you're going to get better.
00:45:54But typically, it doesn't actually help the celebrities get better, but in fact, makes them relapse into their addiction.
00:46:03I've seen billing for services not conducted.
00:46:07I've seen facilities where they maintain stashes of drugs at the places and distribute the drugs to patients.
00:46:14Sometimes it's illicit drugs.
00:46:16Sometimes it's prescription drugs that are administered without prescription.
00:46:19Or there's people using drugs in the facility while you're trying to stay sober.
00:46:25I mean, in one case that we wrote about what a woman was able to get Postmates' delivery of drugs
00:46:31to her.
00:46:33They're a way to kind of get a piece of the Hollywood money, and it's really, really sad.
00:46:38Many of them are for-profit businesses who benefit from the revolving door nature of addiction and recovery.
00:46:45This is what happened with Matthew Perry.
00:46:48The fact that he went to so many rehabs and spent so much money, I wonder, you know, were there
00:46:54times when he was taken advantage of?
00:46:56Were there times that he was exploited, victimized, because he was a vulnerable person with a lot of money, willing
00:47:05to spend it with the hopes of getting better?
00:47:08I fear that, in some cases, that probably happened to him.
00:47:13And eventually got to the point where he was taking 50, 55 tablets a day.
00:47:1755, like, in a day, which is where I was.
00:47:2055.
00:47:22Yeah.
00:47:23This interview with Diane Sawyer is the first time that we, as the public, actually got to understand the full
00:47:31extent of his addiction.
00:47:33I did all sorts of things.
00:47:35I had a bunch of doctors and fake migraines and all that stuff.
00:47:41He was doctor shopping.
00:47:42If someone couldn't provide him with the drugs that he needed, he would go to someone else.
00:47:47He would go to absurd lengths to acquire these pills.
00:47:52And I guess the weirdest thing I did was on Sundays, I would go to open houses and go to
00:47:57the bathrooms in the open house and see what pills they had in there and steal them.
00:48:04Standard oral opiate addict.
00:48:06And then stealing from family, friends, open houses, that's, he learned that from somebody.
00:48:11Somebody gave him that technique.
00:48:13I was rushed to the hospital because I was in intense pain.
00:48:19It was in there that my colon exploded.
00:48:22Matthew Perry suffered a complication of opiate use where the colon stops moving, ruptures, causes peritonitis, and then sepsis.
00:48:33And in his case, he was given about a 2% chance of surviving, was in a calm or extended
00:48:38period of time, but did ultimately survive.
00:48:40My health is good. My health is good. I'm doing really well now.
00:48:44How will we know when you're in trouble and you're not okay?
00:48:50He presented this image to the public of health.
00:48:53But, as we now know, that turned out to not be true.
00:48:58As if I ever say I'm cured.
00:49:03He strikes me as depressed. He does not strike me as sober.
00:49:06It's not fun to talk about this stuff. I don't like talking about it.
00:49:11He's not talking about his recovery. He just seems to be still suffering.
00:49:31It was really heartbreaking when I found out you don't know him, but you feel like you do know him.
00:49:38He just kind of seemed like that funny friend that everybody has.
00:49:42He was just a very unique character, and I don't think anyone else could have really played that.
00:49:48I honestly don't know how to react to this.
00:49:53I just want to appreciate him for giving one of the best comedic performances in history.
00:50:05I really also want to mention someone that's not here today, and that's Matthew Perry,
00:50:11who was so kind and generous with me while we worked on Seventeen again.
00:50:17It was so much fun, and it really did propel me and motivate me in so many ways.
00:50:24It really pushed me into the next chapter of my career, and for that, thank you so much, Matthew.
00:50:29Thinking about you a lot today.
00:50:53One of my first thoughts is such a tragedy ending to what could have been a great story of redemption.
00:51:09And so it was very important for us, in this case in particular, to figure out, did a crime occur?
00:51:34Earlier in that day, October 28, 2023, Matthew Perry's at home.
00:51:42His living assistant is at home, Kenneth Iwamasa.
00:51:46Iwamasa later finds Perry face down floating in the hot tub.
00:51:52And early on, there's some indications that it was an overdose death.
00:51:56I thought for sure that this was going to be a fentanyl overdose, but it was different than, I think,
00:52:02what we all initially thought.
00:52:11So this is the death certificate of Matthew Perry.
00:52:17Overdose death, ketamine poisoning is essentially what it was.
00:52:25Ketamine doesn't fall into the three common buckets of addictive drugs.
00:52:29It's not an opioid.
00:52:30It's a dissociative anesthetic.
00:52:33Ketamine infusions are associated with improved outcomes for pain and depression.
00:52:41Ketamine can only be advertised for use as an anesthetic, but it is not against the law.
00:52:47It's completely legal for a doctor to prescribe ketamine for any reason at all.
00:52:53There's ketamine in the form of lozenges and lollipops, and it is used by some doctors to treat addiction.
00:53:01But also ketamine became a party drug.
00:53:08It's important to understand there's no such thing as a good drug or a bad drug.
00:53:13There's just their biological effects on the human system and our relationship with those drugs.
00:53:20That's it.
00:53:20The drug itself isn't good or bad.
00:53:22It's just a molecule.
00:53:23If you have depression and you have a ketamine infusion and it helps with your depression, ketamine is good.
00:53:28If you're a drug addict and ketamine is part of the drugs you're taking indiscriminately, it can kill you.
00:53:34So here is his autopsy report.
00:53:36And on this file, you see he's not on fentanyl.
00:53:40He's not on amphetamine.
00:53:42He's on lots of ketamine.
00:53:49Studies show that in drug overdose deaths, ketamine is rarely present.
00:53:52And in 99.9% of cases where there is ketamine, other drugs are detected.
00:53:58Matthew Perry's death is no exception.
00:54:01He's on benzodiazepines.
00:54:03He's on a mood stabilizer, lamotrigine.
00:54:06He's on an antidepressant.
00:54:08And he has advanced emphysema.
00:54:10And he's diabetic.
00:54:11And he has coronary disease.
00:54:13He is a mess.
00:54:15But what's important is the but for cause of death, meaning but for the presence of ketamine in his body,
00:54:21he would have lived at least one more day.
00:54:24The ketamine was the factor that then kind of exacerbated these other underlying issues that Matthew Perry had.
00:54:31So ketamine was ruled the cause of death.
00:54:39When the pathology report came through, immediately authorities wanted to know where that ketamine was coming from.
00:54:44And there was at least one other person present when he passed.
00:54:50Kenneth Iwamasa, Matthew Perry's assistant.
00:54:55The LAPD talked to Kenneth Iwamasa, who provided him some information about what happened earlier in that day.
00:55:03Kenneth had injected him three times with ketamine.
00:55:07This is unthinkable.
00:55:09Kenneth had infused Matthew at 8.30 a.m., 12.30 p.m., at which point Matthew asked Kenneth to
00:55:15get the hot tub ready and inject me, infuse a big one.
00:55:21Which is only like an hour later.
00:55:27People would wonder why Kenneth got to the point where he was even considering or willing to do this.
00:55:32And I'm afraid Kenneth was an unwitting dupe.
00:55:39Somebody convinced Kenneth that this was a good idea, and then the addict starts pushing it along a little further,
00:55:44and he's afraid of losing his job, and he wants to help Matthew, and he's seen how he's suffering.
00:55:51But he's not a medical professional.
00:55:53That's exactly why he can't be doing this.
00:55:55He doesn't understand the risks of what he's doing.
00:55:58He's not trained.
00:55:59There's no reason he should understand it.
00:56:06It was pretty clear, ultimately, who gave it to him, and the case could have ended there.
00:56:11But the LAPD is not satisfied with that.
00:56:14They want it to go farther and higher.
00:56:18And so that was the focus.
00:56:20Where did you get it?
00:56:21And then where did that person get it?
00:56:26From the scene of the crime, one of the significant items found were vials of ketamine, but that were also
00:56:33unmarked, meaning that it did not appear to be a legitimate prescription.
00:56:38In addition, ketamine losogens were prescribed to someone not named Matthew Perry.
00:56:44So search warrants and subpoenas were executed to get phone records for Kenneth Iwamasa's phone, and you start to see
00:56:51conversations with a doctor named Salvador Plasencia.
00:56:59Dr. Salvador Plasencia graduated from UCLA Medical School in 2010 and was actually an internal medicine doctor, like an urgent
00:57:08care doctor.
00:57:09But his background wasn't in ketamine.
00:57:19We met with Dr. Plasencia.
00:57:21He agreed to provide information that explained some of the text messages he had with Mr. Iwamasa.
00:57:29So Dr. Plasencia was approached by Matthew Perry for ketamine.
00:57:34Dr. Plasencia went to his colleague, Dr. Chavez, who actually ran a ketamine infusion center for depression.
00:57:41Which means he has a lot of access to both ketamine, but also to patients who are potential victims.
00:57:46Now we had two doctors potentially involved in basically trafficking ketamine.
00:57:54The DEA went to his place of business to do an audit.
00:57:57And they find out that there's ketamine missing.
00:58:00And they confront him, and they ask him what happened to it.
00:58:03And he says he threw them out after they melted or got destroyed because he left them in his car,
00:58:09and it got really hot.
00:58:11And he told a lie there because the drug was redistributed.
00:58:16It was redistributed right to Dr. Plasencia and Matthew Perry.
00:58:22Dr. Plasencia and Dr. Chavez could have been well-meaning.
00:58:27I'm making that patient feel better.
00:58:29And with the addict at the center, the addict is always going to be doing his or her thing.
00:58:35Manipulating, obfuscating, lying, getting drugs.
00:58:39In their brain, their survival depends on the access to the drugs.
00:58:44And if a physician doesn't understand that when he or she is prescribing, not good.
00:58:57But investigators find a series of text messages between Dr. Plasencia and Dr. Chavez.
00:59:04On September 30th, 2023, they discussed how much to charge for ketamine, stating, quote,
00:59:11I wonder how much this moron will pay.
00:59:26Plasencia texts Chavez, if today goes well, we may have repeat business.
00:59:33In a subsequent text, Plasencia said they would be best served not having to look elsewhere
00:59:40and be his go-to.
00:59:47You don't see messages about how is he doing, did it go okay,
00:59:50the absence of any level of concern or care after that,
00:59:53because they were behaving as cruel drug traffickers, not sworn medical doctors.
01:00:07Some of these text messages around Matthew Perry are reprehensible.
01:00:15And there's no excuse.
01:00:17Matthew Perry paid these doctors about $55,000 in cash in less than a month.
01:00:22It was just about exploiting him and sucking money out of him.
01:00:29I expect that behavior from drug dealers, right?
01:00:32I don't expect it from doctors who took an oath to protect their patients.
01:00:38I don't understand how my peers get there.
01:00:44I don't get it.
01:00:46It's my own biases.
01:00:48I don't want to believe this is possible.
01:00:49That it's just what it looks like.
01:00:52I want to believe that they poorly trained, made errors, got sucked in, were manipulated.
01:00:59But in addition to the horrible financial motivations,
01:01:03there were egregious behaviors that I was not expecting from a physician.
01:01:08The investigation covered a two-week period from September 30th to October 12th,
01:01:14where we identified the doctors as a primary source of the ketamine for Matthew Perry.
01:01:20At one point, Dr. Plasencia met them at a parking lot in Long Beach
01:01:25and injected Matthew Perry in the backseat of a car.
01:01:30And then another time when Dr. P injected Matthew Perry,
01:01:35there was an adverse reaction, a blood pressure spike.
01:01:39Matthew Perry was unable to move all of a sudden.
01:01:43At that point, obviously, Dr. Plasencia should have known
01:01:47that this was very dangerous administration of the drug outside a hospital.
01:01:53But they continued to supply Matthew Perry with ketamine,
01:01:57really through an intermediary, Kenneth Iwamasa,
01:02:01who was Matthew Perry's live-in assistant.
01:02:04And they actually, I hesitate to use the word trained,
01:02:08because that would kind of intimate that there was some type of formal process
01:02:12of medical training that went on.
01:02:15The doctor showed Kenneth how to inject Matthew Perry himself with ketamine,
01:02:21because it was not feasible for the doctor to keep traveling back and forth doing these injections.
01:02:30It's mind-boggling that Matthew's physicians trained a layperson
01:02:37to infuse Matthew with ketamine.
01:02:43To give IV injections of a seriously dangerous chemical.
01:02:49At the very beginning, they start charging really exorbitant amounts of money.
01:02:53Initially, it was $1,000 a 10-milliliter vial.
01:02:57Now, all of a sudden, $3,000 for a 10-milliliter vial.
01:03:01And what happens?
01:03:03Iwamasa and Matthew Perry start reaching out to contacts they have in the black market.
01:03:11This tangled web of conspirators that were involved in Matthew Perry's death
01:03:15stretches far wider than just Dr. Plasencia and Dr. Chavez.
01:03:30Is there anything, like, because I don't want to put you in a place to talk about things
01:03:34that you're uncomfortable with.
01:03:38My name is Taylor Shannon.
01:03:41I got into opiates in, like, my late teens.
01:03:45William Cooney is from Birmingham, Alabama.
01:03:49Most of his friends called him Bammer throughout the years, just growing up.
01:03:54I knew him, but not well, until we went to the same rehab facility.
01:04:01That's when we got really close.
01:04:04And ever since then, I mean, I've talked to him every day for, like, 12 years, probably.
01:04:09He was very athletic.
01:04:11He was a left-handed pitcher for baseball.
01:04:15And he could throw the ball really hard.
01:04:18I have not used any opiates or hard drugs for only 16 years in January.
01:04:27Congratulations.
01:04:28Thanks.
01:04:31William stayed clean, but he had a relapse, and it was ketamine.
01:04:39And he never stopped, and I stopped.
01:04:42And I think just from then, it was just constant relapse for him.
01:04:47It had been years since I had used opiates at that time when William was, like, getting really deep into
01:04:54his addiction to where, like, I could be there to help him.
01:04:58Like, I mean, I've pulled him out of drug houses.
01:05:00I've driven around with him in a car while he's using.
01:05:04We're pushing really hard to get him into a rehab facility.
01:05:09He said he would only go if he went to Red Door.
01:05:14I have heard of this facility, an upscale drug treatment center in Bel Air.
01:05:18Welcome to Dr. Drew Podcast, everyone.
01:05:19Thank you, thank you.
01:05:20We appreciate your support.
01:05:21One time, I interviewed the co-founder on my podcast.
01:05:24Today, we're talking to Bernadine Freed.
01:05:26The treatment facility is Red Door Life Recovery.
01:05:29It opened in 2018, and Bel Air is a part of Hollywood.
01:05:34It's all glitz and glamour and fancy bourgeoisie activity.
01:05:41And it became a sought-after destination for members of Hollywood.
01:05:48No one could have known at the time that one of the employees at Red Door would eventually be linked
01:05:53to Matthew Perry's death.
01:05:55Eric Fleming was a TV and film producer and director in Hollywood.
01:06:00He was the director of the film My Brother the Pig, starring Scarlett Johansson and Eva Mendes.
01:06:06He produced the first season of The Surreal Life.
01:06:09His career ended up fizzling out in the 2010s.
01:06:13In 2021, Eric Fleming becomes the program director at a place called The Red Door.
01:06:22The program director is sort of the administrator of the program.
01:06:27Eric Fleming is not a physician.
01:06:28He's not a clinician.
01:06:31When William was at the Red Door, he would call me.
01:06:37But William was obviously high.
01:06:42I could barely understand him, which he usually isn't like that.
01:06:48I think he was there two or three days.
01:06:50And one night, I got the call that he passed away.
01:07:00Um, yeah.
01:07:03I'm so sorry.
01:07:07William Cooney was found unresponsive on the floor of his bathroom at the Red Door.
01:07:13He was found by one of his fellow residents.
01:07:15And they tried to resuscitate him, but they were unsuccessful.
01:07:20According to the coroner, he overdosed on fentanyl and meth.
01:07:40I knew he already was getting drugs outside of the facility.
01:07:46It was actually when Matthew Perry died.
01:07:48My editors wanted us to look into this death.
01:07:52As I started learning more about it, Perry found Fleming through this web of connections,
01:07:56who's kind of connected to various celebrities.
01:07:59He's kind of described to us as a kind of celebrity hanger-on.
01:08:04After the doctors struggle with their procurement of the ketamine,
01:08:09Kenneth Iwamasa contacts Eric Fleming.
01:08:13By this point, Eric was no longer working at Red Door.
01:08:17Kenneth, he texts Eric here, Batman's butler.
01:08:22He said, I can text you directly.
01:08:25How much do you want per bottle?
01:08:27What's the nice tip you want?
01:08:30Eric Fleming provided 50 vials of ketamine days before Perry died.
01:08:36And our next question is, where did you get them from?
01:08:51Hollywood dubbed her the ketamine queen.
01:08:56That is a moniker that was told to us.
01:08:59She was active in the L.A. club scene.
01:09:03She didn't really fit the profile of who the public probably thinks a drug dealer is.
01:09:13I met Jasveen around 2010.
01:09:17It was during one event, and it's electronic music.
01:09:23She was maybe 25, 26 when I met her.
01:09:25You can kind of tell she came from some money, but she still had that hustle in her.
01:09:31She comes from Indian heritage.
01:09:34Grew up in London and Los Angeles.
01:09:37I knew she had gotten a master's degree.
01:09:39I knew she had a business background.
01:09:41She worked, I believe, at Merrill Lynch.
01:09:44And I was under the assumption that she was, and she told me, she was in the event business.
01:09:51She was definitely branding herself as being, you know, an it girl, a popular person.
01:09:56And she was.
01:09:58Mind you, I was a bit surprised at the way things turned out.
01:10:09Based off information provided from Eric Fleming, who is one of the main sources who identified
01:10:16the ketamine queen as a source of his drugs.
01:10:20A search warrant was executed by local authorities, supported by the federal authorities at Jasveen
01:10:26Sinha's house.
01:10:29Ketamine was found.
01:10:32Cocaine was found.
01:10:34Methamphetamine was found in significant trafficking quantities.
01:10:38Thousands of pills were found.
01:10:40In addition, guns, firearms.
01:10:43And they later found that the ketamine seized from her apartment matched the vial sold to both
01:10:49Matthew Perry and another young man who had died of an overdose.
01:10:55Cody McLaurie.
01:11:00Cody grew up in Alaska.
01:11:02It was a small town.
01:11:03He wanted to go and, like, explore and travel and see things.
01:11:07So he moved to Los Angeles.
01:11:11We both had a sweet tooth.
01:11:14Like, we would go run around the neighborhood that we lived at.
01:11:17Because I was doing just, like, small runs, like, 5K, 10K.
01:11:21But we always ended up eating Oreos afterwards.
01:11:24And one year for my birthday, he got me a gallon of milk and probably, like, five or six packages
01:11:29of Oreos.
01:11:30And I was like, this was my favorite present, I think, ever.
01:11:34Cody always knew that he was gay.
01:11:36At the time that he came out, it wasn't on his terms.
01:11:40That was very difficult for him.
01:11:44He had struggles with mental health or depression.
01:11:47Cody did like to do ketamine.
01:11:49I think the thing that drew him most to it was, you know, the therapeutic side of what he would
01:11:56get from it.
01:11:57But it helped him, you know, cope with things that he might have been struggling with at the time.
01:12:02At the age of 33 in 2019, he died of a ketamine overdose.
01:12:10I was sitting in an office by myself.
01:12:13And a friend had called me.
01:12:15And he just said that Cody was dead.
01:12:18And it's like, immediately, my heart just sunk.
01:12:23That's the last thing you expect to hear.
01:12:30What was going on for you at that time?
01:12:33I think shock.
01:12:35One of LA's public officials had released a statement kind of dismissing his death as just another death in the
01:12:44gay community from somebody, like, a drug addict.
01:12:52After Cody died, Cody's sister had gotten his phone back from the police.
01:12:56She had been going through some text messages.
01:13:00Ended up finding conversations and then a Venmo transaction to Yasveen.
01:13:07Talking about him getting ketamine from her and purchasing it that day.
01:13:13And she sent it to the police department doing the investigation in LA.
01:13:18And then five months later, after they did nothing, that's when she messaged Yasveen and told her that the cause
01:13:25of death was ketamine.
01:13:31There was no communication back.
01:13:34Our investigation revealed that in 2019, Yasveen Sangha took upon it herself to try to identify whether she could be
01:13:42held responsible and looking into whether ketamine could be listed as a cause of death on an autopsy report.
01:13:48Sangha did a Google search, and the search was, can ketamine be listed as a cause of death?
01:13:53She already knew, and that's a big issue.
01:13:55She continued to traffic drugs, because it's a cycle of just greed and harm that just keeps going.
01:14:10And on the day that news broke that Matthew Perry died, Yasveen Sangha asked Eric Fleming to delete their messages.
01:14:23They had it over Signal, right? An encrypted messaging app that they had on their phones.
01:14:29But, you know, what's interesting is people have a misunderstanding about how it works, right?
01:14:33Yes, you can delete messages. Sometimes messages are stored on the cloud, and they can be accessed from a search
01:14:40warrant served on the Apple cloud or the iCloud.
01:14:42So we learned that on October 12th, a photo was transmitted relating to the product Yasveen Sangha has available and
01:14:54the prices.
01:15:12And another 25 more just 10 days later, so 50 vials in almost a two-and-a-half-week period
01:15:19is a significant amount of ketamine.
01:15:28How do we know that that was the ketamine, right, that Sangha supply that killed Matthew Perry?
01:15:33Really, it's just based on what prosecutors might call temporal proximity.
01:15:38What dose of ketamine was purchased closest to the time of his death?
01:15:42And is there any specific evidence that suggests that that's not the dose that killed him?
01:15:47And in this case, it was pretty apparent that it was the ketamine from Sangha that actually killed him.
01:16:05It was shocking. I could not understand what was going on.
01:16:11The person that I met that I knew being associated with the death of Matthew Perry...
01:16:18She never came off that way. You know, she wasn't, like, doing business around me.
01:16:22We were just chilling, hanging out as friends.
01:16:24She seemed like she was making moves. She was smart. You know, she wasn't just rich girl partying it up.
01:16:29I think Yasveen most certainly was living, you know, two lives.
01:16:35There is no doubt about that. And she played... She played it well.
01:16:42So, those of you who are in the Portland, I thought the government was holding the responsibility, in this case,
01:16:50on its head.
01:16:51Why is she in custody and the people, whether it's medical professionals or the people who are administering the drug,
01:17:00are out?
01:17:03So, the investigation covered, essentially, two threads that were the main sources for Matthew Perry to get ketamine.
01:17:10On both threads, the sort of unifier was Mr. Iwamasa.
01:17:23Kenneth had Eric Fleming, who was a middle person between himself and the ketamine queen.
01:17:40And then, Mr. Iwamasa also utilized, as a middle person, Dr. Placentia, who was getting his drugs from Dr. Chavez
01:17:49in San Diego.
01:17:50Responsible for Matthew Perry's job.
01:17:52Come here, Mark.
01:17:52Come here.
01:17:53Go ahead, Eddie.
01:17:53This way.
01:17:54Let's go around.
01:17:56Okay.
01:17:57Excuse me, guys. We've got to get to court.
01:17:59I'm sure doctors were saying things like, hey, we didn't actually provide the ketamine that killed Matthew Perry.
01:18:06That came from the ketamine queen.
01:18:07Thanks, everybody.
01:18:09Excuse us.
01:18:10That's your biggest request here, Dr. Chavez.
01:18:16But why wasn't the ketamine that they sold the ketamine that killed Matthew Perry?
01:18:20It was because they were basically extorting the guy.
01:18:24They had become so predatory and were trying to exploit him so much that he decided to find another source.
01:18:32So their conduct, in my mind, was so egregious that even he didn't want to deal with them anymore.
01:18:36If there's anything you might say is when he said it to your home page, don't find it yet.
01:18:40Good evening, you can say, doctor.
01:18:51You going to be able to keep your license, Mr. Chavez, after all this?
01:18:54You don't have to get it out here.
01:19:06My client is accepting responsibility, and he's incredibly remorseful.
01:19:19It's really tragic that someone like Matthew Perry was surrounded by the kind of people
01:19:25who could have helped him live a long life, but instead they betrayed him.
01:19:35People are looking at this young guy dying of addiction, and a physician added to his demise.
01:19:42I think doctors traditionally get off easy.
01:19:49And I think that oftentimes they're given second chances that regular folk like you and I aren't given.
01:19:58The reality is, you know, the Ketamine Queen didn't take an oath to do no harm.
01:20:02These doctors did take that oath, and they were there earlier than the Ketamine Queen.
01:20:06They saw what was going on.
01:20:08How come you're the only one on the show that signs autographs, man?
01:20:11I don't know, man.
01:20:12You got to talk to those people.
01:20:14Dr. Placencia was at Matthew Perry's house and knew the depth of addiction that he was in.
01:20:21And really, if they had had Matthew Perry's best interest at heart, the death could have been avoided.
01:20:31And they didn't do that, so to some extent, they got off relatively light for what they did in this
01:20:36case.
01:20:39Hollywood creates these doctors, and I think Hollywood attracts these doctors.
01:20:43The unfortunate thing is, there's a dark side to Hollywood, and there's going to be people there looking to exploit.
01:20:51And sometimes, they're wearing white coats, and they have an M.D. after their name.
01:20:55Have your life changed a lot since you've made a lot of successful movies lately?
01:21:00No. I mean, the last movie I made was a year ago.
01:21:02The addiction to drugs is a massive problem.
01:21:05You know, the doctors have a responsibility, and so do the individuals.
01:21:12My mission is called Justice for Cus.
01:21:16The Justice for Cus means we believe that Prince left this earth unjustly, and I feel like he deserved to
01:21:24have someone fighting on his behalf.
01:21:29There's going to be somebody that's going to make a decision in their life.
01:21:33Either I'm going to take this pill and take a chance to take it, or I'm going to remember all
01:21:38the people that passed from this.
01:21:46What is your hope for the future?
01:21:48For my profession?
01:21:50For your profession.
01:21:53Uh, we, I'm very discouraged these days.
01:21:57You're getting me in a bad mood.
01:22:00But, um, because the job of physician, at least in my era, was one of the most important jobs you
01:22:09could ever do.
01:22:10And do no harm is our number one priority.
01:22:19My hope is, here's my hope, that this profession is restored to the importance that it, it, it needs.
01:22:28And that the people that do the work understand how important the job is and behave accordingly.
01:22:38I'm going to be on MTV.
01:22:40I'm going to be rich.
01:22:42Sounds cool.
01:22:43Sign me up.
01:22:45Don't think the show helps as much as we think.
01:22:50All we're seeing is crisis, chaos, and alleged criminal activity.
01:22:54It was like, we murdered him.
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