Matthew Perry’s assistant gets 41 months in prison for central role in his ketamine death
Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence to 60-year-old Kenneth Iwamasa in federal court in Los Angeles.
Perry had hired Iwamasa in 2022, and he was paying him $150,000 a year to live at his Los Angeles home and act as his assistant. (AP/ File) Matthew Perry’s live-in personal assistant, who had a central role in the “Friends” star’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 Angeles. He was also sentenced to two years of probation and a $10,000 fine.
It was the fifth and final sentencing in the 2 1/2-year investigation and prosecution that followed Perry’s death at age 54 on Oct. 28, 2023.
Iwamasa was at Perry’s side through the final days of his life, 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 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.
Iwamasa’s lawyers said in a court filing that he was an employee doing his employer’s bidding and had a “particular vulnerability” in his relationship to Perry. “In short, he could not ‘simply say no.’ That inability had tragic consequences.”
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