Matthew Perry’s alleged “street dealer”once managed a high-end rehab center where a man overdosed, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Now that man’s family wants authorities to investigate whether there’s a connection.
William Cooney died from a mix of fentanyl and other drugs while he was a patient at the Red Door care facility, where Erik Fleming worked as a program director and sober living manager. The facility acknowledged that Fleming, who pled guilty in connection to Perry’s death, used to work there but said he was not working the day of Cooney’s death in a statement.
“Red Door and its founders bear no responsibility for [Cooney’s] death,” said an attorney for the facility, adding that it operates at “the highest levels of client care.”
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Fleming, a former film director and TV producer, was a longtime friend of Brooke Mueller—Charlie Sheen’s ex-wife who also struggles with addiction—who was dating Cooney when Perry died, THR reported. Her connection to Fleming reportedly led to her being questioned by authorities in the first reveal of new details in the case. Cooney’s ex-wife told the publication that Cooney’s “unraveling” began when he started dating Mueller, who connected him to Fleming and Red Door.
“[Fleming] had been introduced vaguely as an assistant, best friend, family acquaintance (by Mueller)—apparently godfather to one of her children,” she told THR. “[Fleming] wasn’t known for having any real credentials in health services,” but “had a financial stake in pushing [Cooney] there.”
A substance abuse consultant who worked with Cooney said she’d tried to get authorities to investigate the facility’s role in his death for years, to no avail. Now Fleming, one of its employees, has pleaded guilty to distributing drugs. “I now wonder if Matthew Perry would be alive if [Cooney’s] case had been given the attention that it deserved,” she added.
