Matthew Perry’s Assistant Sentenced to 41 Months — the Case Is Finally Closed

The legal chapter that followed Matthew Perry’s death is over.

Kenneth Iwamasa, the 60-year-old man who served as Perry’s live-in personal assistant and injected him with the ketamine that killed him, was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles to 41 months in prison. Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett handed down the sentence, along with two years of supervised release, a $10,000 fine, and a $100 mandatory special assessment. Iwamasa must report to prison by July 17.

He is the fifth and final defendant to be sentenced in the case that followed Perry’s death on October 28, 2023 — the day Iwamasa injected the Friends star with three shots of ketamine and then left him alone. Perry was found face down in his backyard jacuzzi when Iwamasa returned from running errands.

What the Court Heard

The hearing was not quiet. Perry’s stepfather, journalist Keith Morrison, delivered a victim impact statement that left Iwamasa visibly shaken — the New York Post reported he appeared to be on the verge of tears as Morrison spoke. Perry’s sister Madeline, in a court filing, did not hold back: “He injected my brother with a lethal dose of ketamine and left him in a hot tub to die. It is difficult to put into words the sense of betrayal I felt when I found out what Kenny had done. In many ways, it felt like my brother died all over again. Everything I believed about the day he died — everything Kenny told us was a lie.”

Perry’s half-sister had separately argued that Iwamasa deserved a harsher sentence than Jasveen Sangha — the so-called “Ketamine Queen” who was sentenced in April to 15 years for supplying the drugs. The judge did not go that far.

Iwamasa’s lawyers had asked for just six months in prison and six months of home confinement, arguing their client was “merely doing his employer’s bidding.” Prosecutors countered that Iwamasa had become far more than just an assistant — he worked alongside two doctors to supply Perry with more than $50,000 worth of ketamine in the weeks before his death, all without any medical training.

Prosecutors got what they asked for: 41 months, exactly.

The Five Defendants

The investigation and prosecution stretched over two and a half years after Perry was found dead at 54 in his Pacific Palisades home. Five people were ultimately charged and sentenced. Sangha, who prosecutors described as the primary supplier of the ketamine, received the harshest sentence: 15 years. The two doctors who provided ketamine to Perry were also sentenced earlier in the case.

Iwamasa pleaded guilty in August 2024, admitting to a single count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. Perry’s cause of death was officially determined to be “acute effects of ketamine.”

He looked stoic in court Wednesday, wearing a grey suit with a white shirt and tie. Whatever expression he had for the cameras outside, inside the courtroom the family’s words landed.

For the people who loved Matthew Perry, Wednesday closed something. It didn’t fix it. But it closed it.