Kenneth Iwamasa, who earned $150,000 a year as Matthew Perry’s assistant, faces up to 15 years in prison when he goes on trial Wednesday for his role in the actor’s death.
Iwamasa pleaded guilty in August 2024 to conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. Iwamasa admitted to repeatedly injecting Perry, 54, with ketamine without medical training, including multiple injections on Oct. 28, 2023 – Perry’s death date.
Perry, who had a history of drug abuse and addiction, was found dead in the hot tub of his Pacific Palisades home from the side effects of the drug. Iwamasa was one of five people charged with conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.
Although prosecutors noted in their sentencing letter that Iwamasa was the first defendant to cooperate with others, they asked the judge to sentence him to more than three years in prison. They cited the former assistant’s responsibility for Perry’s medical care, knowledge of the actor’s addiction struggles and measures to remove and destroy evidence following Perry’s death.
“As the defendant watched Perry in the dark, he could have taken steps at any time to bring Perry back into the light,” prosecutors wrote in their sentencing letter.
“The defendant could have contacted Mr. Perry’s family members or sought professional help to deal with Perry’s drug relapse, or he could have simply said ‘no’ when Perry asked for another injection of ketamine. But he chose not to help them, and instead hid the ongoing danger to Mr. Perry, which ultimately led to his death.
It is not clear what sentence Iwamasa’s lawyers are asking for.
In response to the government’s sentencing memo, Alan Eisner and Dmitry Gorin cited Iwamasa’s “special vulnerability in the relationship he fell into with the victim.”
“In short, he couldn’t ‘just say no,'” Iwamasa’s lawyers wrote. “That inability has had dire consequences.”
In letters written to the judge before the sentencing, Perry’s loved ones said the actor considered Iwamasa his “family”. Suzanne Morrison, Perry’s mother, said Iwamasa’s No. 1 job “was to be my son’s friend and guardian in his fight against addiction.”
After Perry’s death, Morrison wrote, Iwamasa insisted on speaking at the funeral and stuck by the family, “as if somehow he was a good man who tried to save Matthew.” He accused Iwamasa of threatening to take legal action “to extract compensation from the workers’ comp.”
“We trusted a man with no conscience, and my son paid the price,” Morrison wrote.
Iwamasa had known Perry since 1992 and became his permanent assistant in 2022, according to prosecutors. Her responsibilities included coordinating medical appointments and helping to ensure Perry was taking prescribed medications.
According to Iwamasa’s plea agreement, in September 2023, Perry asked Iwamasa for help in finding illegal drugs. During that time, prosecutors said, rather than helping Perry get sober, Iwamasa “became his drug supplier and drug supplier.”
Throughout October 2023, prosecutors said, Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry with “doses of ketamine without the proper medical training or equipment needed to ensure the drug was used safely.” They cited the fact that Iwamasa saw “clear signs that Mr. Perry was in danger.”
At least twice in October, Iwamasa found Perry unconscious in his apartment and saw Perry “frozen,” unable to speak after a large injection of ketamine, according to the government’s sentencing report. Despite that, prosecutors say, between October 24 and 27, Iwamasa injected Perry with six to eight shots a day.
Iwamasa admitted that on the day of Perry’s death, at the direction of the actor, he injected Perry with a shot of ketamine in the morning and repeatedly while watching a movie in the afternoon. Less than an hour later, Perry asked Iwamasa to fix the jacuzzi and “shoot me big.”
According to the plea agreement, Iwamasa filled a syringe with ketamine and administered it to Perry while the actor was in or near a jacuzzi. Soon after, Iwamasa left to run errands for Perry. When he returned, he found Perry’s body.
During questioning by police, prosecutors said Iwamasa hid the injections he administered and “took steps to remove and destroy evidence related to Mr. Perry’s use of ketamine in the days leading up to his death.”
Prosecutors said Iwamasa later provided “important and reliable information related to the drug conspiracy.”
This month, a judge sentenced Erik Fleming, a former drug manufacturer and consultant, to two years in prison for distributing the ketamine that killed Perry. Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine queen,” was sentenced to 15 years last month.
Salvador Plasencia, who was the doctor who supplied Perry with ketamine in the weeks before his death, was previously sentenced to 30 months in prison. Mark Chavez, another former doctor who was involved in supplying the actress with ketamine, was sentenced to eight months of house arrest.
In Morrison’s letter to the judge, he thanked investigators for finding the truth about Iwamasa and the judge for his “calm and careful consideration.”
“And I have to say this: the word ‘closure.’ There is no such thing,” he wrote. “Ask any mother who has had her child mercilessly taken away, nothing will take away this pain, and I’m sure it won’t, as long as I’m alive.”
