LOS ANGELES (TNND) — The personal assistant to former “Friends” star Matthew Perry is the last person to be sentenced following a 2 1/2-year investigation into the actor’s death.
Kenneth Iwamasa, 60, is scheduled to appear in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday. He pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death. Four of his co-defendants have already been sentenced over the past year.
Prosecutors are asking the judge to sentence him to three years and five months in prison — significantly less than he could have faced without cooperating, but still more than all but one of his co-defendants received.
Iwamasa’s lawyers argued in a court filing that he was an employee carrying out his employer’s wishes and had a “particular vulnerability” in his relationship with Perry.
“In short, he could not ‘simply say no,’” they wrote. “That inability had tragic consequences.”
Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, submitted a victim impact statement ahead of the sentencing, placing the greatest blame on Iwamasa for her son’s death.
“Matthew trusted Kenny. We trusted Kenny,” she wrote. “Kenny’s most important job — by far — was to be my son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction. We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.”
The actor had been receiving ketamine treatments for depression, an increasingly common off-label use for the drug.
According to Iwamasa’s plea agreement, he bought ketamine off the books from another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, who taught him how to inject it. Plasencia was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison in July.
Iwamasa also began buying ketamine from Perry acquaintance Erik Fleming, who obtained it from a street dealer. Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison two weeks ago.
That dealer, Jasveen Sangha — dubbed “The Ketamine Queen” — was sentenced to 15 years in prison on April 8.
In the final days of Perry’s life, Iwamasa was injecting him with ketamine six to eight times a day. On Oct. 23, 2023, he allegedly gave the 54-year-old actor a large dose before leaving to run errands. He returned to find Perry dead in the Jacuzzi.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner determined ketamine was the primary cause of death, with drowning listed as a secondary cause.
At first, Iwamasa lied to police, omitting ketamine from the list of medications Perry had been using and saying nothing about the injections. But after investigators served a search warrant in January 2024, he began cooperating.
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Editor’s note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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