Matthew Perry’s assistant gets more than 3 years in prison for injecting a lethal dose of ketamine

Matthew Perry’s personal assistant, who was instrumental in Friends The star who became addicted to ketamine and injected him with a fatal dose of the drug, was sentenced on Wednesday to three years and five months in prison.

Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett sentenced 60-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa in federal court in Los Angeles. He was also sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of US$10,000.

It was the fifth and final sentence in a two-and-a-half-year investigation and prosecution that followed Perry’s death at age 54 on Oct. 28, 2023.

“You knew his struggle with addiction,” Garnett said before handing down the sentence. “Your behavior was reckless, not only on the day of his death but in the days leading up to his death.”

The sentence was what prosecutors wanted, although Garnett disagreed with certain details. He found that Iwamasa did not use a position of trust, which would have brought more time in prison, and said “there is no concrete evidence that he acted with bad intentions, although others disagree.”

‘I’m so sorry’

Iwamasa was by Perry’s side in the last days of his life, serving as the actor’s assistant, drug courier and de facto doctor. He was the last person to see Perry alive, and he was the one who found him dead in his hot tub.

Iwamasa stood in the courtroom before the sentencing and watched as Perry’s family and friends spoke from the podium.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, and I’m sorry,” she said. “I am very sorry for doing these illegal actions that I will regret forever. I will take that to my grave.”

He was the first person to reach a plea deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death, and became their most important witness.

Iwamasa’s attorney, Alan Eisner, argued for a six-month sentence and six months of house arrest, insisting that he was always acting on the orders of a superior.

“His loyalty to Mr. Perry was very important,” Eisner told the judge. “He worshiped Mr. Perry, he looked up to Mr. Perry. Everything he did was pleasing and pleasing Mr. Perry.”

When Eisner said Iwamasa couldn’t have done anything different than what he did, the judge cut him off and said: “You’re not willing. No you won’t.

‘You are the beast that killed him’

Perry’s father, who has been around for a long time The date line journalist Keith Morrison, spoke for his loved ones during the sentencing.

“We felt like he was part of the family,” Morrison said. “We trusted him completely.”

Morrison acknowledged the power imbalance, but said Iwamasa still had a choice.

“Jove. You should have called,” he said. “But you didn’t. Because you were living a good life. … You were controlling one of the most famous people in the world.”

Lisa Ferguson, Perry’s business manager for most of his career and now a real estate agent, painted a bleak picture, saying Iwamasa deliberately fired everyone close to Perry, including his sober-living colleagues and medical staff, in order to exploit his power and influence. He angrily said that he used Perry’s addiction to his advantage.

“What you are is the beast that killed him,” he said! He said he has shown no “guilt or remorse” since Perry’s death, and that he should “rot in jail.”

“Matthew deserved to live,” she said. “You don’t want to.”

Perry had hired Iwamasa in 2022, and was paying him $150,000 a year to live in his Los Angeles home and act as his assistant.

The actor was using the legal anesthetic ketamine for depression, a common off-label use. But she wanted more than what her doctor would give her.

Finally, 5 defendants were convicted

At Iwamasa’s request, he bought off-the-shelf ketamine from another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, who taught him how to inject. Plasencia was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in July.

Iwamasa also began buying ketamine from Perry’s friend Erik Fleming, who was getting it from a street vendor. Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison two weeks ago.

The dealer, Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen,” was sentenced to 15 years on April 8.

In the last days of Perry’s life, Iwamasa injected him six to eight times a day. On October 23, 2023, he shot the actor full of high doses and left to do some things.

The LA County Medical Examiner found ketamine to be the primary cause of death. Drowning was the second cause.

At first, Iwamasa lied to the police, omitting ketamine from Perry’s list of medications, and saying nothing about his injections. But when investigators issued a search warrant in January 2024, he began to come forward.

Perry became one of the biggest stars of her generation along with Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow in FriendsNBC’s megahit sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.