A doctor who admitted illegally supplying ketamine is now arguing that he should not receive a harsher prison sentence simply because he was a doctor.
That claim sits at the centre of an appeal that could attract attention far beyond the Matthew Perry case, raising a recurring question in criminal prosecutions involving regulated occupations: when does a licence become a source of greater legal exposure rather than protection?
Dr. Salvador Plasencia has asked the Ninth Circuit to overturn his 30-month sentence and return the case for resentencing. He is not challenging his guilty plea to ketamine distribution charges. Instead, according to reports of the appeal, his legal team argues that the sentencing court wrongly treated him as a physician who abused a position of trust. Their position is that Perry was not seeking legitimate medical treatment and that Plasencia’s role was closer to that of a drug supplier than a treating doctor.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia is challenging the sentencing enhancement applied in the Matthew Perry ketamine distribution case.
The argument carries significant sentencing consequences because federal courts often impose tougher penalties on defendants who misuse positions of trust. Doctors, lawyers, accountants and other licence holders are granted access, authority and responsibilities that ordinary individuals do not possess. When criminal conduct is found to have occurred within that relationship, courts frequently regard the misconduct as more serious because the individual’s credentials helped create the opportunity for it to occur.
The legal challenge for Plasencia is that courts often look beyond labels. A relationship that becomes informal does not automatically lose the duties attached to it.
Judges may examine whether the defendant continued to benefit from the expertise, access, authority or credibility associated with a professional qualification. If those factors remained part of the arrangement, prosecutors can argue that the position of trust survived regardless of how the relationship was described.
Federal prosecutors previously alleged that Plasencia supplied ketamine to Perry despite knowing of his history of addiction and charged substantial sums for the drugs. Court filings and sentencing materials have also referenced allegations involving treatment records and documentation created during the investigation. The appeal reportedly challenges several sentencing enhancements, including what the defence characterises as improper double counting and the application of the abuse-of-trust enhancement.
The broader lesson reaches well beyond healthcare. People working in regulated professions sometimes assume that stepping outside formal business procedures reduces the obligations attached to their role. In practice, the opposite can occur.
A doctor conducting unofficial transactions, a lawyer providing off-the-record advice or a financial adviser operating outside standard compliance channels may still be judged through the lens of the qualification that gave them access in the first place.
Compliance teams face a particular challenge.
Internal policies often assume that conduct occurring outside official channels falls outside the organisation’s responsibility. Prosecutors and regulators do not always see it that way, especially when a licence, credential or position of authority helped make the conduct possible. What appears internally to be a personal arrangement can become evidence that specialised authority was being misused rather than abandoned.
The appeal also highlights a tension that appears repeatedly in misconduct cases involving regulated occupations. Defendants often argue that they were acting as private individuals rather than in a professional capacity, while prosecutors argue that their expertise, access and credibility remained central to the conduct. Judges frequently look past how a relationship is described and focus instead on how it actually operated.
The Ninth Circuit will ultimately decide whether the sentencing court correctly applied those principles in Plasencia’s case. Whatever the outcome, the appeal serves as a reminder that licences and professional qualifications can create obligations that follow individuals beyond traditional workplace settings.
Regulators are paying closer attention to how authority and credentials are used. As a result, the qualification that gives someone access and credibility can become the very factor that increases legal exposure when things go wrong.