Matthew Perry’s longtime assistant faced sentencing Wednesday for supplying and injecting ketamine that led to the “Friends” star’s death.
LOS ANGELES — The final verdict in the 2 1/2-year investigation and prosecution of the drug-induced death of Matthew Perry will be that of the personal assistant who sat at the center of the entire saga, purchasing the ketamine that killed the “Friends” star and injecting him with a fatal dose.
Kenneth Iwamasa, 60, is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in the courtroom of Los Angeles federal court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, who sentenced four of his co-defendants over the past year.
He was the first of them to reach a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiring to distribute ketamine causing death. Wednesday will be his first court appearance since the case became public.
Yanzheng became the most important witness for the prosecution. They asked Garnett to sentence him to three years and five months in prison, which was significantly less than what he might have faced had he not cooperated but still harsher than all but one of his co-defendants.
Iwamasa’s attorneys said in a court filing that Iwasa was an employee who followed his employer’s orders and was “particularly vulnerable” in his relationship with Perry. “In short, he couldn’t ‘simply say no.'” This inability had tragic consequences. “
Perry’s family, some of whom may speak in court, made clear in letters to the judge that they bear the greatest responsibility for Perry’s death. They thought Rock was an old friend who could help Perry stay sober, but instead indulged in a lifelong addict’s worst impulses.
“Matthew trusted Kenny. We trusted Kenny. By far Kenny’s most important job was being my son’s partner and guardian in his battle with addiction,” Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, wrote. “We trusted a man with no conscience and my son paid the price.”
Perry hired Iwamasa in 2022, paying him $150,000 a year to live in his Los Angeles home and serve as his assistant.
The actor has been legally taking the surgical anesthetic ketamine to treat depression, an increasingly common off-label use of the drug. But he wanted more than what the doctors gave him.
According to Imasa’s plea agreement, he purchased over-the-counter ketamine from another doctor, Salvador Plasencia, and taught him how to inject it. Plasencia was sentenced in July to 2 1/2 years in prison.
Iwamasa also began purchasing ketamine from an acquaintance of Perry’s, Eric Fleming, who purchased it from a street vendor. Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison two weeks ago.
Drug trafficker Jasveen Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen,” was sentenced to 15 years in prison on April 8.
In Perry’s final days, Yanzheng injected him six to eight times a day. On October 23, 2023, he injected the 54-year-old actor with a large dose of the drug and then left to run errands. He returned to find Perry dead in the jacuzzi. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner found ketamine was the primary cause of death. Drowning was a secondary cause.
Iwazheng initially lied to police, omitting ketamine from a list of drugs Perry used and saying nothing about his injections. But when investigators served a search warrant in January 2024, he began to confess.
Perry starred alongside Courteney Cox, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow on NBC’s hit sitcom “Friends,” which aired from 1994 to 2004, becoming one of the biggest stars of her generation.
