Matthew Perry’s assistant gets more than 3 years in prison for central role in his ketamine death

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Matthew Perry’s live-in personal assistant, who had a central role in the “Friends” actor’s descent into ketamine addiction and injected him with a fatal dose of the drug, was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison, bringing an end to the legal saga surrounding the death of one of the biggest TV stars of his generation.

“You were privy to his struggle with addiction,” said Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, who handed down the sentence to the 60-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa in federal court in Los Angeles. “Your conduct was reckless, not just on the day of his death but in the days leading up to his death.”

Iwamasa was the last person sentenced of the five who pleaded guilty in the investigation and prosecution that followed Perry’s death at age 54 on Oct. 28, 2023. The group included corrupt doctors and a major street dealer, “Ketamine Queen” Jasveen Sangha, whose 15-year sentence was the only one longer than Iwamasa’s.

The assistant was constantly at Perry’s side in his final days, acting as the actor’s enabler, drug messenger and de facto doctor. He was the last person to see Perry alive, and he was the one who found him dead in his Jacuzzi. He would eventually become prosecutors’ most important informant.

How much blame for an assistant to an addict?

Wednesday’s nearly three-hour hearing was largely a debate between lawyers for both sides, the judge and Perry’s loved ones over the level of responsibility that can be put on the employee of a powerful person when addiction is in the mix.

“His loyalty to Mr. Perry was paramount,” Iwamasa’s lawyer, Alan Eisner, told the judge. “He worshipped Mr. Perry, he looked up to Mr. Perry. All he did was please and accommodate Mr. Perry.”

Eisner argued for a six-month prison term with six months of home confinement.

“Mr. Perry was not blameless,” the lawyer said. “Nobody likes to hear that.”

When Eisner said Iwamasa was unable to act differently than he did, the judge cut him off and said: “Unwilling. Not unable. He could have said no.”

Perry’s mother and sisters made it clear in letters to the judge that there is no one, not even Perry himself, who they blame for his death more than Iwamasa — a longtime friend they thought would help the actor maintain sobriety.

Perry’s stepfather, longtime “Dateline” journalist Keith Morrison, spoke for the family at the sentencing.

“We really felt that he was part of the family,” Morrison said. “We trusted him implicitly.”

Morrison acknowledged the power imbalance, but said Iwamasa still had a choice.

“You did the injections. You could have made the phone call,” he said. “But you didn’t. Because you were living a dandy life.” He added, “You were in control of one of the most famous people in the world.”

‘The monster that killed him’

Lisa Ferguson, Perry’s business manager for most of his career and now his estate executor, painted a darker picture, saying Iwamasa deliberately drove out everyone else surrounding Perry, including sober-living companions and medical workers, to shore up his own power and influence. She angrily said he used Perry’s addiction to his own advantage.

“What you are is the monster that killed him,” Ferguson said. She said he had shown “not a shred of guilt or remorse” since Perry’s death, and that he ought to “rot in prison.”

“Matthew deserved to live,” she said. “You don’t.”

Iwamasa looked right at Morrison and Ferguson throughout their remarks, and made the unusual move of facing Perry’s family and friends in the audience when he spoke.

“I’m horribly, horribly sorry, and I offer my condolences to you,” he said. “I’m just so sorry to have done these illegal acts that I will forever regret.”

Iwamasa wore a charcoal-gray suit, with his long white hair combed back. He had no visible reaction to the sentence. His father and brother sat in the audience with other supporters.

Iwamasa comes clean to police, faces the spotlight

Perry had hired Iwamasa in 2022, and he was paying him $150,000 a year. The broad criminal investigation began not long after Iwamasa returned from running errands to find Perry dead. The LA County Medical Examiner found that ketamine was the primary cause of death. Drowning was a secondary cause.

At first, Iwamasa lied to police and got rid of evidence of ketamine use. But after investigators served a search warrant on the house in January of 2024, he began coming clean. By that August he had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death.

That came quietly before any Perry-related indictments were announced, and Wednesday was Iwamasa’s first time under the intense public spotlight surrounding the case. He stood in front of dozens of cameras outside the courthouse as Eisner spoke for him, saying that the sentence was excessive and didn’t reflect the dynamic between the two men.

“One person had the power. One person had no power,” the lawyer said.

Morrison said outside court he was satisfied that the family could get the sentencing behind them.

But, he added, “It doesn’t change the fact that we’ve lost him, that he’s dead, and that my wife is broken.”

The sentence was exactly what prosecutors sought, though Garnett disagreed with them on the details. She found Iwamasa did not abuse a position of trust, which could’ve brought more prison time, saying that category was generally reserved for professionals and experts. She found that he had not benefited financially from the crime, though acknowledged he did from the relationship with Perry.

She also told Iwamasa, “there is no hard evidence that you acted with malicious intent, though some would disagree.”

His sentence also included a $10,000 fine and two years of probation. He was ordered to return to go to prison on July 17.

Perry became a major TV star along with Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow on “Friends,” NBC’s megahit sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.