<\/p>\n
The judge rebuffed Kenneth Iwamasa’s bid to get only six months’ prison and six months’ home detention and instead went above the recommended sentencing guidelines of 30-37 months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
LOS ANGELES (CN) \u2014 Matthew Perry\u2019s live-in personal assistant was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison Wednesday for obtaining and injecting the actor with a fatal dose of ketamine in October 2023.<\/p>\n
Kenneth Iwamasa, 61, was the last one to be sentenced of the five defendants<\/a> who have pleaded guilty to their role in supplying the former \u201cFriends\u201d star with the anesthetic drug in the last two months of his life.<\/p>\n U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett rejected Iwamasa\u2019s bid to be given just six months\u2019 incarceration and six months\u2019 home detention, noting he was aware of the actor\u2019s substance abuse problems and the adverse reactions to ketamine injections Perry had shown in the weeks leading up to his death.<\/p>\n \u201cYour conduct was reckless, and we\u2019re here because of it,\u201d the Joe Biden appointee told Iwamasa.<\/p>\n The 41-month prison sentence was what prosecutors with the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Los Angeles had asked for.<\/p>\n Iwamasa, who pleaded guilty in 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death, admitted to repeatedly injecting Perry with ketamine without medical training, including performing multiple injections on him on Oct. 28, 2023 \u2014 the day he died.<\/p>\n While Iwamasa\u2019s attorney Alan Eisner sought to minimize his client\u2019s culpability by arguing he had been deferential to a fault and would do anything the actor asked of him, the judge rejected the idea that he had been unable to say no to Perry\u2019s demands that he arrange for ketamine to be delivered to the actor\u2019s home and that he injected him with the drug.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was unwilling, not unable,\u201d Garnett said.<\/p>\n Perry\u2019s stepfather, Keith Morrison, who was among the family members present in the courtroom in downtown LA, told Iwamasa the assistant had made himself indispensable in Perry\u2019s life but failed to do the one thing he had been expected to do if the actor slipped up and started using drugs again \u2014 that is, to call the family so they could arrange for treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could\u2019ve called somebody,\u201d Morrison said, adding Iwamasa instead chose \u201cliving the good life in control of one of the most famous people in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Perry\u2019s longtime business manager Lisa Ferguson, who said she considered her client as her little brother, berated Iwamasa for persuading Perry to get rid of the people in his life who made sure he took his proper medications and stayed off drugs, including the \u201csober companions\u201d he employed, and trying to take control over Perry\u2019s affairs because he felt entitled to the affluent lifestyle he was enjoying.<\/p>\n Ferguson accused Iwamasa of calling the celebrity gossip site TMZ after he had called 911 when he found Perry unresponsive in his hot tub, rather than his family.<\/p>\n She also said the assistant had sought three-year severance pay after Perry\u2019s death, even though he had only worked one year for him as a personal assistant, and had expected the actor\u2019s family to take care of him for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so sorry to all of you,\u201d Iwamasa told the family. \u201cI\u2019m horribly, horribly sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n Perry, who rose to fame in the 1990s for playing Chandler Bing on NBC\u2019s sitcom \u201cFriends,\u201d died at the age of 54. His death was due to a ketamine overdose after he had received several injections of the drug from Iwamasa on the day he died.<\/p>\n Two doctors, a drug addiction counselor and a bona fide drug dealer, the so-called Ketamine Queen<\/a>, were sent to prison for supplying Perry with ketamine.<\/p>\n Iwamasa helped Perry obtain 71 vials of ketamine in the last two months of the actor\u2019s life. After Perry\u2019s death, he cleaned up the crime scene and lied to the police that the actor had been injecting himself with the drugs.<\/p>\n