Kenneth Iwamasa “fed” Perry 70 vials of ketamine in a month, including at least three injections on the day he died, prosecutors said

Matthew Perry’s live-in assistant was sentenced Tuesday to three years and five months in prison for injecting the Friends star with at least three shots of ketamine and leaving him alone in his backyard jacuzzi before he was found face down in the water on Oct. 28, 2023.

The assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, had pleaded guilty in August 2024 to a single count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death. The last of five co-defendants to be sentenced in the high-profile case, he had asked for six months in prison and six months of home detention. Prosecutors recommended the 41-month sentence, saying that punishment reflected both the “life-ending harm” Iwamasa caused and the “significant cooperation” he eventually provided to investigators.

“What you are is the monster who killed him,” Perry’s longtime business manager and estate executor, Lisa Ferguson, said in a dramatic victim impact statement delivered from a podium as Iwamasa watched from just feet away. She accused Iwamasa of knowingly preying on a drug addict to live a luxury lifestyle at Perry’s house. She said he repeatedly lied to the family, took photos as Perry’s remains were interred in a wall at his funeral, demanded three years of his $150,000 salary as severance, and sued the estate with a workers’ compensation claim. “Matthew deserved to live. You don’t.”

Ferguson also accused Iwamasa of fabricating a “pathetic timeline” for authorities to get a better plea deal. She said Perry had three times the amount of ketamine typically used for anesthesia in his system when Iwamasa called 911, saying he’d just returned from errands to find Perry lifeless in the hot tub.

“Before you left the house, you knew Matthew was passed out or dead, and you panicked,” she said in court, accusing him of waiting hours to call paramedics. “You wanted to provide distance between you and him – an alibi.”

Perry’s stepfather, the news anchor Keith Morrison, was the only family member to address the court. Looking directly at Iwamasa, Morrison said the assistant had Perry’s relatives “on speed dial” but failed to sound the alarm because he didn’t want to jeopardize his access to Perry’s wealth.

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“You could have made the phone call. But you didn’t because you were living a pretty dandy lifestyle. That’s your motivation,” Morrison said. “You were living like a king, in control of one of the most famous people in the world. You had the responsibility to let us know.”

When it was his turn to speak, Iwamasa said he was “horribly sorry” and regretted his actions. “I’m just so sorry to have done illegal acts,” he said. “I hope to be a cautionary tale to anyone in my same situation.”

His defense lawyer, Alan Eisner, told the court that Perry was the first person to contact each of his drug suppliers and that he directed Iwamasa’s actions. “Mr. Perry was not blameless,” Eisner said, arguing unsuccessfully for a more lenient sentence. “Mr. Perry did not lack agency.”

Arguing for the stiffer sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello said Iwamasa was “intimately aware” that Perry wanted to “overcome his demons and live a sober life” but abused his “special position” as Perry’s trusted assistant. Yanniello said Iwamasa also hid vials and syringes before authorities arrived at the scene and “caused the destruction” of evidence before he was caught months later.

“He fed Mr. Perry drugs,” Yanniello said. “He obtained over 70 vials of ketamine in less than a month and injected Mr. Perry over and over again after seeing warning signs over and over again.”

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Iwamasa’s punishment was substantially less than the 15-year term handed down last month to his co-defendant Jasveen Sangha, the so-called “Ketamine Queen” who sold the ketamine that was in Perry’s system when he died. The three other co-defendants in the case received shorter sentences.

Erik Fleming, the drug dealer who acted as the middleman with Sangha, got two years in prison earlier this month. Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who admitted supplying Perry with large quantities of ketamine in the weeks before Fleming and Sangha entered the picture, was slapped with 30 months in prison last December. Dr. Mark Chavez, who helped Plasencia with his supply, got the most lenient sentence of eight months of home detention and three years of supervised release.

In letters to the court before the hearing, Perry’s mom and sisters blasted Iwamasa for lying about what happened. They had known Iwamasa for decades and relied on him to help care for the vulnerable actor, they wrote.

“Kenny’s most important job – by far – was to be my son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction,” mom Suzanne Morrison wrote to the judge. “Kenny knew, should he feel unduly pressured, that with one phone call to any number of the people in Matthew’s orbit, reinforcements would be on the way, and his job would be safe.”

She claimed that after Perry died, Iwamasa tried to stay close, possibly to monitor what she knew. “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 favorite things – he would call me. He insisted on speaking at Matthew’s funeral. He clung to me and the family as if he was somehow the good guy who tried to save Matthew,” she wrote.

The grieving mom blasted Iwamasa for lining up multiple sources of ketamine for Perry, injecting her son without medical training, and trying to “pry a settlement” when it became clear he would not receive a “financial payout” from the family. She called Iwamasa “a man without a conscience.”

Perry’s sister, Madeline Morrison, said Iwamasa’s address at Perry’s funeral was shameful. “The person responsible for my brother’s death stood up and addressed the people who loved him most. That is like a cruel joke I still struggle with,” she wrote. “He didn’t just take my brother’s life – he tainted our final memories of saying goodbye.”

In court filings, prosecutors said Iwamasa had seen the danger more clearly than anyone. They said he was “acutely aware” of Perry’s addiction issues, found him unconscious inside his home twice earlier that month, watched him “freeze up” and lose his ability to speak after a large injection from a doctor who has since been sentenced, and destroyed evidence before paramedics arrived. Iwamasa finally admitted his role in the fatal events, prosecutors said, after investigators served a search warrant at his residence in January 2024.

According to the statement of facts incorporated in his deal with prosecutors, Iwamasa arranged Perry’s first meeting with Dr. Salvador Plasencia on Sept. 30, 2023, and paid the doctor $4,500 in cash. During the meeting, Plasencia gave Perry two ketamine injections, showed Iwamasa how to inject the anesthetic, and left behind several syringes and at least one vial containing ketamine.

Iwamasa later ordered more ketamine from Plasencia, referring to the vials in text messages as “cans of dr. pepper,” investigators said. Over the next two weeks, he bought at least $55,000 worth of ketamine from Plasencia using Perry’s money.

On Oct. 10, 2023, Iwamasa arranged for Plasencia to meet him and Perry in a parking lot near the Long Beach Aquarium, where Plasencia injected Perry with ketamine in the back seat of a car, according to the plea agreement. A couple of days later, Plasencia gave Perry a large dose at the actor’s home while Iwamasa was present, causing Perry’s blood pressure to spike and his body to “freeze up,” Iwamasa admitted.

Under the plea deal, Iwamasa said he later began buying ketamine from Fleming. On Oct. 14, 2023, he bought 25 vials supplied by Sangha for $6,000. He arranged another purchase of 25 vials that were delivered on Oct. 24, 2023, he admitted.

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Iwamasa admitted that from Oct. 24 to Oct. 27, 2023, he injected Perry with about six to eight shots of ketamine each day. On the day Perry died, Iwamasa injected him once at about 8:30 a.m. and again at about 12:45 p.m., according to his plea agreement. About 40 minutes later, Perry asked Iwamasa to turn on the jacuzzi and “shoot me up with the big one.” Iwamasa admitted giving him the shot.

According to his autopsy report, Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine at age 54. Best known for playing Chandler Bing on Friends, he went to rehab multiple times and was open about his addiction to drugs, mostly painkillers. In his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, the actor was candid about the severity of his drub problem, opening with the line: “Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.” He admitted he was taking up to 55 Vicodin a day during the filming of the third season of Friends.