Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s friend of 25 years, admitted in 2024 that he had injected the actor with ketamine three times on the day of his death, as well as on previous occasions.

Matthew Perry’s assistant sentenced to 3 years in prison after family says he left actor in hot tub ‘to die’

Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry's friend of 25 years, admitted in 2024 that he had injected the actor with ketamine three times on the day of his death, as well as on previous occasions.

By Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre

Mekishana Pierre is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2025. Her work has previously appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Popsugar.

EW's editorial guidelines

May 27, 2026 2:59 p.m. ET

Matthew Perry at the Playhouse Theatre in London in 2016. Credit:

David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty

- Matthew Perry's assistant Kenneth Iwamasa has been sentenced to more than three years in prison.

- Iwamasa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine in 2024 after admitting that he'd injected the *Friends* star with it three times the day he died in 2023.

- In their victim impact statements, Perry's sisters expressed betrayal after learning how Iwamasa enabled their brother's drug use, saying it felt like he "died all over again."

Almost two years after Matthew Perry's assistant Kenneth Iwamasa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine in connection with the actor's fatal 2023 overdose, he has learned his fate.

Iwamasa, 60, has been sentenced to 41 months — just over three years — in prison, reports PEOPLE.

United States District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, who has also sentenced his co-defendants in the past year, handed down the sentence — which matched the punishment sought by prosecutors — in Los Angeles federal court on Wednesday. Family members of both Perry and Iwamasa were present in court, according to the outlet.

Perry was found unresponsive in the hot tub at his house and pronounced dead at the scene on Oct. 28, 2023. He was 54.

According to an autopsy report, the actor's death resulted from the acute effects of ketamine, with contributing factors including drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine, a prescription medication used to treat opioid use disorder.

Iwamasa, Perry's friend of 25 years, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death after admitting that he had injected the *Friends* star with the dissociative anesthetic three times the day he died, as well as on previous occasions. He said he had never received medical training on how to inject the drug.

Matthew Perry with his sister Emily and his mother, Suzanne Morrison.

Gregg DeGuire/WireImage

Ahead of Iwamasa's sentencing, Perry's mother, Suzanne Morrison, and his half-sisters, Caitlin and Madeline, wrote victim impact statements, which were obtained by **, detailing the depths of Iwamasa's deceit.

"It is difficult to put into words the sense of betrayal I felt when I found out what Kenny had done," wrote Madeline, the youngest daughter of Suzanne and her husband, *Dateline *correspondent Keith Morrison. "The idea that someone my brother considered family could betray him in such an unimaginable way is something I never could have conceived."

Madeleine alleged that several instances make it "painfully clear" now that Iwamasa was hiding the truth from the Morrisons, including how "manic and unsettled Kenny seemed" when Perry's family went to his home to select his burial clothes.

"He repeatedly volunteered his version of events without being asked, as if he were being interviewed rather than mourning a friend," she recalled. "In reality, he was trying to distract us from the truth: that he had injected my brother with a lethal dose of ketamine and left him in a hot tub to die."

Matthew Perry's sisters accuse late actor's assistant of lying to them, say he 'left him in a hot tub to die'

Matthew Perry’s family slams late actor’s assistant for behavior at 'Friends' star's funeral: 'Cruel joke'

The ketamine that Iwamasa injected Perry with on the day of his death had been supplied through the black market by Jasveen Sangha, also known as the Ketamine Queen. Sangha, the North Hollywood drug dealer who pleaded guilty last year to selling the ketamine dose that killed Perry, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in April.

After an investigation launched by the Los Angeles Police Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, and U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Sangha pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury. In a plea agreement, she admitted to working with another dealer to provide Perry with dozens of vials of ketamine in the weeks before his death, including the ketamine that killed him. She faced a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison.

Matthew Perry in 2022.

Santiago Felipe/Getty

In addition to Sangha and Iwamasa, three other individuals were indicted and charged with providing the ketamine that led to Perry's overdose: doctors Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez and Erik Fleming, an acquaintance of Perry's.

Prosecutors said Sangha worked with Fleming and that, in October 2023, they sold the actor 51 vials of ketamine that were provided to Iwamasa. Chavez and Plasencia were also convicted of illegally distributing ketamine to Perry. Chavez, who once ran a ketamine clinic, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and was sentenced in December to eight months of home confinement. Plasencia, who briefly treated Perry before his death, pleaded guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine and was sentenced in December to 30 months in prison.

***Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our ******EW Dispatch newsletter******.***

Iwamasa's legal team did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

- Celebrities & Creators

- Celebrity Lawsuits & Legal Troubles

Original Article on Source

Source: “EW Celebrity”