LOS ANGELES – Authorities have arrested at least one person in connection with Matthew Perry death from an accidental ketamine overdose last year, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.
The official was not authorized to discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. Authorities scheduled a news conference in Los Angeles to announce details of the case on Thursday morning.
Los Angeles police said in May that they were working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service with an investigation into why the 54-year-old had so much surgical anesthetic in his system.
An assistant found Perry face down in his hot tub on October 28, and paramedics who were called immediately pronounced him dead.
His autopsy, released in December, found that the amount of ketamine in his blood was in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.
The decades-old drug has seen a huge increase in use in recent years as a treatment for depression, anxiety and pain. People close to Perry told coroner’s investigators that he was experiencing ketamine infusion therapy.
But the medical examiner said Perry’s last treatment, a week and a half earlier, would not explain the ketamine levels in his blood. The drug is normally metabolized in a matter of hours. At least two doctors were treating Perry, a psychiatrist and an anesthesiologist who served as his primary care doctor, the medical examiner’s report said. No illicit drugs or paraphernalia were found in his home.
Ketamine was listed as the primary cause of death, which was ruled an accident with no foul play suspected, the report said. Drowning and other medical problems were contributing factors, the coroner said.
Perry had years of fight against addiction which dates back to his “Friends” days, when he became one of the biggest television stars of his generation as Chandler Bing alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004. NBC’s hit sitcom.
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Balsamo reported from New York.
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