Matthew Perry’s personal assistant has been sentenced to three years and five months in prison after injecting the drugs that killed the former Friends star in 2023
Matthew Perry’s personal assistant has been sentenced to three years and five months in prison after injecting the drugs that killed the former Friends star.
The actor was found dead in October 2023 at the age of 54, and now Kenneth Iwamasa, 61, who was found to have administered ketamine to Perry in the last days of his life, has pleaded guilty to distributing the drug that resulted in death or serious bodily injury.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett said as she handed down the sentence: “You were privy to his struggle with addiction. Your conduct was reckless, not just on the day of his death but in the days leading up to his death.”
She then noted that there was “no hard evidence” that he had “acted with malicious intent, though some would disagree,” just as Iwamasa offered his apologies to the court. He said: “I am so sorry to all of you. I’m just so sorry to have done illegal acts I will forever regret. I will take that to my grave.”
Iwamasa’s lawyer Alan Eisner had argued for a six month prison sentence, with six months of home confinement, claiming that his client was acting under the instructions of a powerful boss.
He said: “His loyalty to Mr Perry was paramount. He worshipped Mr Perry; he looked up to Mr Perry. All he did was please and accommodate Mr Perry,” only for Garnett to point out that “he could have said no.” Perry’s mother Suzanne also spoke of the impact she had felt since the death of her son.
In a statement obtained by People, she said: “Instead of protecting Matthew, he aided and abetted illegal drug taking, arranged for one source of supply, then another. Shot the drugs into Matthew’s body, though he was not in the least qualified.
“He did it even though he could see, anyone could have seen, it was so obviously dangerous. And he did it again and again. He sent me songs, he drew a little map to help me find my way around the cemetery. If he saw a rainbow – one of Matthew’s favourite things – he would call me … [He clung to me] as if he was somehow the good guy who tried to save Matthew. We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.” Iwamasa was also found to have purchased the ketamine from Perry’s acquaintance Erik Fleming, 56, who sourced it from Jasveen Sangha, 42, in the first place.
Iwamasa’s sentencing comes after that of dealer Sangha, known as the Ketamine Queen, who was handed a sentence of 15 years behind bars on April 8, whilst Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison a fortnight ago.
The LA County Medical Examiner found that ketamine, a surgical anaesthetic that has become widely used for other purposes, both legal and illegal, was the primary cause of Perry’s death. Drowning was a secondary cause. On the day of Perry’s death, Iwamasa gave police a list of all the medications Perry was taking, but he left off ketamine and said nothing about the injections, prosecutors said.
After investigators served a search warrant on the house in January 2024, the situation began to change, and he would slowly admit his role in Perry’s death. Iwamasa said he had been giving Perry six to eight injections of ketamine per day in the last days of his life, and that Perry had told him: “Shoot me up with a big one” on the day he died.
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