Matthew Perry's assistant sentenced for role in actor's death
· UPIMay 27 (UPI) -- Kenneth Iwamasa, a personal assistant who worked for Friends actor Matthew Perry, was sentenced Wednesday to three years and five months in prison for injecting Perry with the dose of ketamine that killed him.
Iwamasa is the last of five people connected with Perry's death to be sentenced. Federal prosecutors said he administered the drug to Perry several times despite having no medical training.
In August, Iwamasa pleaded guilty to distributing ketamine that resulted in death or serious bodily injury. Prosecutors had sought the specific prison sentence Iwamasa received, The Guardian reported.
Perry, who played Chandler Bing in the sitcom Friends, was found dead at age 54 on Oct. 28, 2023. The autopsy showed his death was caused by "the acute effects of ketamine" with contributing factors of drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine, an opioid. Perry had struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for years.
Prosecutors said Iwamasa gave Perry multiple ketamine injections a day in the time leading up to his death and the assistant had found the actor unconscious multiple times that month. Ketamine is a quick-acting anesthetic that can also be misused as a hallucinogenic.
"When defendant Kenneth Iwamasa was hired as Matthew Perry's live-in personal assistant, he was acutely aware that Mr. Perry had suffered from drug addiction for most of his life," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum, ABC News reported. "But rather than help Mr. Perry maintain sobriety, defendant became his enabler and drug supplier. As defendant injected more and more ketamine into Mr. Perry, he saw -- and was the only person to see -- clear warning signs that Mr. Perry was in danger."
Earlier this month, Erik Fleming, a licensed drug addiction counselor who sold Iwamasa the ketamine that killed Perry, was sentenced to two years in prison. Dr. Salvador Plasencia and Dr. Mark Chavez, who had also provided ketamine for Perry in the past, were sentenced in December to 30 months in prison and three years of supervised release, respectively.
The largest sentence went to drug dealer Jasveen Sangha, who has been called "the Ketamine Queen" and provided the drug to Fleming. She was sentenced in April to 15 years in prison.