Matthew Perry's Assistant Kenneth Iwamasa Sentenced to Over 3 Years for Injecting Fatal Ketamine Dose

Kenneth Iwamasa, the live-in personal assistant who injected Matthew Perry with the fatal dose of ketamine that killed the Friends star in October 2023, was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in federal prison. Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence in Los Angeles federal court, exactly matching what prosecutors had requested. Iwamasa, 60, was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and will serve two years of supervised release following his prison term. He must self-surrender by noon on July 17.

The sentence closes the book on a 2½-year federal investigation into the drug distribution network that supplied Perry with ketamine in the months and days before his death at age 54. Iwamasa was the fifth and final defendant to be sentenced.

What Iwamasa Did

By the end of Perry's life, Iwamasa had become his employer's enabler, drug messenger, and de facto doctor. According to his plea agreement, he purchased off-the-books ketamine from Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who taught him how to inject it. He later began buying additional supply from Perry acquaintance Erik Fleming, who was sourcing it from street dealer Jasveen Sangha. In the final days before Perry's death, Iwamasa was injecting him six to eight times per day.

On Oct. 23, 2023, Iwamasa injected Perry with a large dose of ketamine and left to run errands. He returned to find Perry dead in the Jacuzzi at his Pacific Palisades home. Iwamasa was the last person to see Perry alive and the first to find him dead.

He was also the first defendant to cooperate with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death — and became the government's most important witness.

"You were privy to his struggle with addiction," Judge Garnett said before handing down the sentence. "Your conduct was reckless, not just on the day of his death but in the days leading up to his death."

Perry's Mother Speaks

In a victim impact statement filed ahead of the sentencing, Perry's mother Suzanne Morrison described the trust the family had placed in Iwamasa — and the depth of his betrayal.

"Kenny's most important job — by far — was to be my son's companion and guardian in his fight against addiction. His number one responsibility — ensure that Matthew remained what he wanted to be: drug free," she wrote.

"But instead of protecting Matthew, he aided and abetted illegal drug taking, arranged for one source of supply, then another."

Morrison and her husband, journalist Keith Morrison, attended the sentencing in person.

The Others Sentenced Before Him

Iwamasa's sentence was the final in a series that worked its way up and down the drug supply chain:

Jasveen Sangha, the street-level dealer dubbed "the Ketamine Queen," received the harshest punishment — 15 years in federal prison, sentenced in April 2026. Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who supplied and taught Iwamasa how to inject ketamine, received two years and six months. Erik Fleming, the middleman who connected Iwamasa with Sangha, was sentenced to two years. Dr. Mark Chavez, who provided an early source of ketamine, received eight months of home confinement and 300 hours of community service.

Iwamasa's cooperation with prosecutors — and his defense attorneys' argument that he was an employee following his employer's wishes with a "particular vulnerability" in his relationship to Perry — resulted in a sentence more lenient than Sangha's but still among the most substantial in the case.

The End of a Case

Perry died Oct. 28, 2023. He had been open about decades of struggle with addiction throughout his life and career, and had spoken publicly about his ketamine treatments, which he had been receiving legally from licensed providers. The ketamine that killed him, however, came through an entirely separate and illegal supply chain.

With Iwamasa sentenced, every defendant in the case has now faced judgment. Perry was 54 years old.

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