Matthew Perry’s personal assistant sentenced to 41 months in prison over role in actor’s death
Matthew Perry's assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, 60, has been sentenced to 41 months in prison in connection with the death of the Friends star.
Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home in October 2023 and in August 2024 Iwamasa pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.
The BBC reports that prosecutors said Iwamasa, who had no medical training, and two doctors provided the actor with over $50,000 of ketamine in the weeks before his death.
The maximum sentence he could have faced was 15 years in prison, and the assistant has also been sentenced to two years of supervised release once he leaves prison and fined $10,000.
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Addressing Perry's family in the courtroom today (27 May), the former personal assistant said he was 'horribly, horribly sorry'.
"I'm so sorry to all of you. I'm just so sorry to have done illegal acts that I will forever regret. I will take it to my grave," he said.
"I hope I'll be a cautionary tale to someone who's in my position to make better choices."
Perry's sister Caitlin Morrison had written a letter to the judge saying she had 'no sympathy for Kenny Iwamasa', saying that when the assistant left her brother on the night he died he was 'either escaping from something he knew he had done or he was willfully abandoning a vulnerable person in a dangerous situation'.
The actor's other sister Madeline Morrison said she thought Iwamasa was 'more culpable' than ketamine dealer Jasveen Sangha, who had been given the nickname 'ketamine queen'.
Sangha was sentenced last month to 15 years in prison as she admitted selling 25 vials of fatal ketamine to the actor.
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett told Iwamasa he knew about Perry's ketamine addiction and had concealed evidence.
The former personal assistant had been the last person to see the Friends actor alive and was the one who had found Perry dead in his hot tub.
His legal representatives said that because he worked for Perry he had a 'particular vulnerability', they said: "In short, he could not ‘simply say no.’ That inability had tragic consequences.”
Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who illegally sold ketamine to Perry and injected him, was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Dr. Mark Chavez, a San Diego doctor who ran a ketamine clinic and was the source of the doses that Plasencia sold to Perry, received eight months of home detention and three years of supervised release.
Erik Fleming who sourced the ketamine from Sangha was sentenced to two years in prison.
Topics: Matthew Perry, Friends, Crime, Celebrity
Joe Harker