LOS ANGELES: The personal assistant who repeatedly injected Matthew Perry with ketamine before he died was sentenced to prison on Wednesday (May 27), becoming the fifth person to face justice over the Friends star’s fatal overdose.
Kenneth Iwamasa, 61, was ordered to serve three years and five months in federal lock-up after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.
Prosecutors said that in the days leading up to Perry’s 2023 death in a hot tub, Iwamasa gave the actor more than 25 shots of the drug, including at least three jabs on the day he died.
On Perry’s last day, he told Iwamasa – who lived at his luxury Los Angeles home – “Shoot me up with a big one,” court papers said.
Perry’s mother Suzanne Morrison said the family had trusted Iwamasa.
“Kenny’s most important job – by far – was to be my son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction,” she wrote in a letter to US District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett.
“We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.”
Lawyers for Iwamasa said he was really little more than a hired hand, bound to do the bidding of his wealthy boss.
Iwamasa had “a particular vulnerability to the relationship dynamic which he fell into with the victim. In short, he could not ‘simply say no.’ That inability had tragic consequences,” the defense wrote in a court filing.
Iwamasa is the fifth person to be sentenced in connection with Perry’s death.
Others include Salvador Plasencia, one of two doctors who profited off Perry’s addiction.