{"id":19406,"date":"2026-05-27T22:14:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/2026\/05\/27\/matthew-perrys-assistant-sentenced-to-more-than-3-years-in-prison-for-role-in-actors-ketamine-overdose\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T22:14:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T22:14:11","slug":"matthew-perrys-assistant-sentenced-to-more-than-3-years-in-prison-for-role-in-actors-ketamine-overdose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/?p=19406","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Perry&#8217;s assistant sentenced to more than 3 years in prison for role in actor&#8217;s ketamine overdose |"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"e9jwa\">\n<div class=\"vdo_embedd\">\n<div class=\"GfdvZ\">\n<section class=\"_bIDB  clearfix id-r-component leadmedia undefined undefined  E9tg9 \" style=\"top:0px\">\n<div class=\"_bIDB\" data-ua-type=\"1\" onclick=\"stpPgtnAndPrvntDefault(event)\">\n<div class=\"ypVvZ\">\n<div class=\"WGttI\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.toiimg.com\/thumb\/msid-131358884,imgsize-175830,width-400,height-225,resizemode-4\/matthew-perry-assistant-jai.jpg\" alt=\"Matthew Perry's assistant sentenced to more than 3 years in prison for role in actor's ketamine overdose\" decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\"\/><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/topic\/matthew-perry\" styleobj=\"[object Object]\" class=\"\" commonstate=\"[object Object]\" frmappuse=\"1\">Matthew Perry<\/a>&#8216;s live-in personal assistant, who had a central role in the &#8220;Friends&#8221; star&#8217;s descent into ketamine addiction and injected him with the fatal dose of the drug, was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"3\"\/>Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence to 60-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa in federal court in Los Angeles. He was also sentenced to two years of probation and a USD 10,000 fine.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"5\"\/>It was the fifth and final sentencing in the 2 1\/2-year investigation and prosecution that followed Perry&#8217;s death at age 54 on Oct. 28, 2023.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"7\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>No evidence that Kenneth Iwamasaacted with malicious intent<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You were privy to his struggle with addiction,&#8221; Garnett said before handing down the sentence. <!-- -->&#8220;Your conduct was reckless, not just on the day of his death but in the days leading up to his death.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"13\"\/>The sentence was exactly what prosecutors had sought, though Garnett disagreed on some of the details. She found that Iwamasa did not abuse a position of trust, which could&#8217;ve brought more prison time.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"15\"\/>She also told Iwamasa, &#8220;there is no hard evidence that you acted with malicious intent, though some would disagree.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"17\"\/>Iwamasa was at Perry&#8217;s side through the final days of his life, acting as the actor&#8217;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.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"21\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Kenneth Iwamasa apologises to Matthew Perry&#8217;s family<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Iwamasa stood at the court&#8217;s podium before the sentencing and made the unusual move of looking right at Perry&#8217;s family and friends as he spoke into the microphone.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"24\"\/>&#8220;I&#8217;m horribly, horribly sorry, and I offer my condolences to you,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I&#8217;m just so sorry to have done these illegal acts that I will forever regret. I will take that to my grave.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"27\"\/>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.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"29\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Kenneth Iwamasa first to reach plea deal<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Iwamasa was the first person to reach a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August of 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death, and became their most important witness.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"32\"\/>Iwamasa&#8217;s lawyer, Alan Eisner, argued for a six-month prison term with six months of home confinement, emphasizing he was always acting at the direction of a boss with much more power than he had.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"35\"\/>&#8220;His loyalty to Mr. Perry was paramount,&#8221; Eisner told the judge. &#8220;He worshipped Mr. Perry, he looked up to Mr. Perry. All he did was please and accommodate Mr. Perry.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"37\"\/>When Eisner said Iwamasa was unable to act differently than he did, the judge cut him off and said: &#8220;Unwilling. Not unable. He could have said no.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"39\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Matthew Perry&#8217;s parents blame Kenneth Iwamasa for actor&#8217;s death<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Perry&#8217;s mother and sisters made it clear in letters to the judge that there is no one they blame for his death more than Iwamasa &#8211; a longtime friend they thought would help the actor maintain sobriety but instead indulged the worst impulses of a lifelong addict.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"43\"\/>Perry&#8217;s stepfather, longtime &#8220;Dateline&#8221; journalist Keith Morrison, spoke for his loved ones at the sentencing.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"45\"\/>&#8220;We really felt that he was part of the family,&#8221; Morrison said. &#8220;We trusted him implicitly.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"47\"\/>Morrison acknowledged the power imbalance, but said Iwamasa still had a choice.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"49\"\/>&#8220;You did the injections. You could have made the phone call,&#8221; he said. &#8220;But you didn&#8217;t. Because you were living a dandy life.&#8221; He added, &#8220;You were in control of one of the most famous people in the world.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"52\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Kenneth Iwamasa used Matthew Perry&#8217;s adiction to his advantafe<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Lisa Ferguson, Perry&#8217;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&#8217;s addiction to his own advantage.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"55\"\/>&#8220;What you are is the monster that killed him,&#8221; she said. She said he had shown &#8220;not a shred of guilt or remorse&#8221; since Perry&#8217;s death, and that he ought to &#8220;rot in prison.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"58\"\/>&#8220;Matthew deserved to live,&#8221; she said. &#8220;You don&#8217;t.&#8221;<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"60\"\/>Iwamasa looked right at Morrison and Ferguson throughout their remarks from his nearby seat.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"62\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>About Kenneth Iwamasa&#8217;s work profile<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Perry had hired Iwamasa in 2022, and he was paying him USD 150,000 a year to live at his Los Angeles home and act as his assistant.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"65\"\/>The actor had been taking the surgical anesthetic ketamine legally for depression, an increasingly common off-label use. But he wanted more than his doctor would give him.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"68\"\/>According to Iwamasa&#8217;s plea agreement, he bought off-the-books ketamine from another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, who taught him how to inject it. Plasencia was sentenced to 2 1\/2 years in prison in July.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"70\"\/>Iwamasa also began buying ketamine from Perry acquaintance Erik Fleming, who was getting it from a street dealer. Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison two weeks ago.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"72\"\/><\/p>\n<p><h2>Investigation into Matthew Perry&#8217;s death<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>The dealer, Jasveen Sangha, dubbed &#8220;The Ketamine Queen,&#8221; was sentenced to 15 years on April 8.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"76\"\/>The criminal investigation began not long after Iwamasa returned from running errands to find Perry dead.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"78\"\/>The LA County Medical Examiner found that ketamine was the primary cause of death. Drowning was a secondary cause.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"80\"\/>At first, Iwamasa had lied to police, omitting ketamine from the list of medications Perry was using, and saying nothing about his injections. But after investigators served a search warrant in January of 2024, he began coming clean.<span class=\"id-r-component br\" data-pos=\"82\"\/>Perry became one of the biggest stars of his generation along with Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow on &#8220;Friends,&#8221; NBC&#8217;s megahit sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/timesofindia.indiatimes.com\/entertainment\/english\/hollywood\/news\/matthew-perrys-assistant-sentenced-to-more-than-3-years-in-prison-for-role-in-actors-ketamine-overdose\/articleshow\/131358877.cms\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matthew Perry&#8216;s live-in personal assistant, who had a central role in the &#8220;Friends&#8221; star&#8217;s descent into ketamine addiction and injected him with the fatal dose of the drug, was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison.Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence to 60-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa in federal court in Los&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saharanews.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}