Matthew Perry’s former assistant Kenneth Iwamasa was sentenced to 41 months in prison on Wednesday, in the final sentencing in the two-and-a-half-year investigation and prosecution following the death of the actor.
Kenneth Iwamasa, 60, was sentenced in the Los Angeles federal courtroom of Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, who has sentenced four of his co-defendants in the past year in connection with the 2023 overdose death of the 54-year-old actor. He was also sentenced to two years of probation and a US$10,000 fine.
Iwamasa was the first of the five defendants to reach a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death.
Iwamasa’s lawyers asked the judge for a sentence of six months in prison and six months of home confinement at the hearing on Wednesday. Prosecutors asked for 41 months in prison, three years supervised visitation, US$10,000 and a $100 supplemental fee.
Iwamasa became the most important witness for the prosecution. They were asking Garnett to sentence him to three years and five months in prison, significantly less than what he might have faced without cooperating, but still more than all but one of his co-defendants.
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,” his lawyers argued.
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Perry’s family members wrote in letters to the judge, viewed by the New York Times, that there is no one they blame for the late actor’s death more than Iwamasa.
“Mathew trusted Kenny. We trusted Kenny. Kenny’s most important job — by far — was to be my son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction,” wrote Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison. “We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.”
Perry hired Iwamasa in 2022 and was reportedly paying him US$150,000 a year to live at his Los Angeles home and act as his assistant, according to The Associated Press.
According to Iwamasa’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 two and a half years in prison in July after prosecutors asked for three years..
Iwamasa also began buying ketamine from Perry’s acquaintance Erik Fleming, who was getting it from a street dealer. Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison two weeks ago.
Fleming was working as a drug addiction counsellor when a mutual friend he and the late actor shared told him that Perry was seeking ketamine, according to filings from prosecutors.
Fleming’s lawyers said he was a former television and film producer whose career had been ravaged by substance abuse and that after gaining sobriety, he became a counsellor.
His lawyers allege that he had relapsed when approached about Perry and connected the late actor with Jasveen Sangha — dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” by prosecutors for running an elaborate, high-end drug operation — to buy her product.
Prosecutors said that Fleming delivered 50 vials of Sangha’s ketamine for Perry’s use, marking up the price to make a profit, including 25 vials sold for US$6,000 in cash to the actor four days before his death.
Fleming’s sentencing came one month after Sangha, the Los Angeles woman who pleaded guilty to illegally selling Perry the drug that killed him, was sentenced to 15 years in prison and three years’ supervised release.
The 42-year-old Sangha, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, is the only one whose plea deal included an acknowledgment of causing Perry’s death. Sangha’s sentence reflects the request of prosecutors to a federal judge in a March 25 filing.
When Sangha learned she had sold the drugs that caused Perry’s death, “she didn’t care and kept selling,” prosecutors wrote in the filing.
Prosecutors also noted that Sangha’s “actions show that she suspected the drugs she had sold Mr. Perry may have caused his death, so she sought to destroy digital evidence that she and a co-conspirator possessed that would link them to the deadly drug deal.”
Her “actions show a cold callousness and disregard for life. She chose profits over people, and her actions have caused immense pain to the victims’ families and loved ones,” prosecutors said.
“That defendant had the opportunity to stop after realizing the impact of her dealing — but simply chose not to,” the filing added.
Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine was the primary cause of death.
The Friends star had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal off-label treatment for depression, but he wanted more than the doctor would give him. That at first led him to Plasencia, who admitted to illegally selling Perry ketamine.
Another doctor, who admitted to providing Plasencia the ketamine he sold to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention.
—with files from The Associated Press
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