The chief medical officer accused in connection with the overdose of American-Canadian actor and Friends star Matthew Perry is expected to plead guilty in the coming weeks, the US Department of Justice has announced.

Salvador Plascencia “has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison,” the department said in a statement.

The second doctor in the case, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty in October last year to conspiracy to distribute ketamine in the weeks before the actor was found dead in his Los Angeles home hot tub in 2023.

Perry's long struggle with drug addiction was well documented, but his death at the age of 54 shocked millions of “Friends” fans around the world.

After an autopsy found high levels of ketamine, an anesthetic, in the actor's system, a criminal investigation was launched.

Placencia bought the ketamine from Chavez and sold it to the desperate actor at inflated prices.

Jaswine Sangha, the alleged “queen of ketamine” who supplied drugs to wealthy clients and celebrities, has been charged with selling the dose that killed Perry.

She pleads not guilty.

The comedy television series “Friends,” which followed the lives of six New Yorkers going through adulthood, love, and careers, attracted a huge global audience and turned completely unknown actors into megastars.

Perry's role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him incredible wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.

In 2018, he suffered a drug-related ruptured colon and underwent multiple surgeries.

In his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry describes how he went through rehab dozens of times.

“I have been sober since 2001, with the exception of about sixty or seventy minor incidents,” he writes. |BGNES