Matthew Perry assistant jailed in connection to actor’s death
Two and a half years on from his passing in 2023, the assistant to Matthew Perry has been jailed for 41 months in connection with his death.
Perry’s 60-year-old live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, worked with two doctors to provide the actor with more than $50,000 of ketamine in the weeks leading up to his death.
Prosecutors in the case stated that Iwamasa had no medical training. Despite this, he injected Perry with ketamine, including multiple times on the day he died.
Tragically, Perry was found dead in his backyard hot tub in Los Angeles in October 2023; in August 2024, Iwamasa pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, causing death, which came with a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison.
Alongside the 41 months of imprisonment, Perry’s former assistant was sentenced to two years of supervised release and was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.
In the courtroom in Los Angeles on May 27th, Iwamasa addressed the actor’s family from the stand, and began, “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 added, “I hope I’ll be a cautionary tale to someone who’s in my position to make better choices,” adding again that he was “horribly sorry”.
When making the decision, Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett gestured to Iwamasa’s knowledge of Perry’s struggle with addiction, as well as concealing evidence after his death.
“You were privy to his trouble with addiction,” Judge Garnett told Iwamasa ahead of sentencing. “You knew he should not have used ketamine at the amount he did.”
Ahead of his sentencing, Perry’s family submitted letters revealing their position on the matter. His sister, Caitlin Morrison, wrote that when Iwamasa left her brother on the night of his death, he was “either escaping from something he knew he had done or he was willfully abandoning a vulnerable person in a dangerous situation”.
Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, wrote, “We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.”
In April, Sangha, a Los Angeles woman dubbed the Ketamine Queen, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for her involvement in Perry’s death.
Meanwhile, Dr Salvador Plasencia, who also supplied the actor with the lethal drug, was sentenced to 30 months in prison in December last year. At the same time, Dr Mark Chavez, who also sold ketamine to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention and three years of supervised release.
Finally, Erik Fleming, who sourced the drug from the so-called Ketamine Queen, was sentenced to two years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $200 penalty.
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