Kenneth Iwamasa, the personal assistant who injected Matthew Perry with the lethal doses of ketamine that killed him, was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison on May 27, 2026, closing the final courtroom chapter in the actor’s death. The 61-year-old had known Perry for more than 30 years before becoming his live-in assistant in 2022. Federal prosecutors detailed how Iwamasa administered at least three shots of ketamine to Perry on October 28, 2023, obtained from a street dealer, before Perry entered his hot tub and died alone in the water. He was 54 years old.
Iwamasa initially called 911 but failed to list ketamine among Perry’s medications when officers arrived. Prosecutors said he later returned to the house, cleaned up the syringes and ketamine bottles, deleted the evidence, and contacted the drug broker to say it was done. The sentencing was the final development in a two-and-a-half-year investigation that resulted in five convictions. Two doctors, Dr.
Mark Chavez and Dr. Salvador Plasencia, supplied Perry with ketamine, a surgical anesthetic sometimes used legally to treat depression. Plasencia charged Perry roughly $2,000 per vial, a drug with a going price of about $15, selling around 20 vials for $55,000 in cash. In a text message from September 2023, Plasencia wrote, “I wonder how much this will pay.
” On one occasion, he injected Perry himself and watched the actor freeze up as his blood pressure spiked dangerously. His response was to tell Iwamasa not to do that again, then leave additional vials for the assistant to administer. Plasencia surrendered his medical license in September 2025. Jaswinder Sangha, known as the ketamine queen of North Hollywood, sold Perry 50 vials of ketamine for $11,000 in cash in the two weeks before his death.
When federal agents searched her home, they found 80 additional vials. She faces the possibility of life in prison, with her case proceeding separately. Eric Fleming, the broker who connected Sangha to Perry, pleaded guilty to his own charges and was sentenced separately. Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, submitted a victim impact statement, writing that her family had been relieved when Iwamasa was hired, trusting him to understand her son’s battle.
She wrote that Kenny’s most important job was to be her son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction. The final chapter of Perry’s life was shaped by decades of struggle that began long before his fame. Born August 19, 1969, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, Perry was raised in Ottawa, Canada, after his parents divorced. He drank for the first time at 14, finishing a bottle of Baby Duck wine in a friend’s backyard and feeling something he would spend the rest of his life trying to get back.
By his own account, Perry went to 15 rehabilitation programs over 30 years and was hospitalized more than 60 times. He wrote in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, about taking 55 Vicodin a day, stealing pills from strangers’ medicine cabinets during open houses, and surviving a five-month hospital stay after his colon exploded in 2018. He was placed on an ECMO machine, a device that nearly nobody survives; the other four patients on the machine that night died. His parents were told he had a 2% chance of surviving until morning.
He got better. He turned his Malibu home into a sober living facility called Perry House, which operated for two years. He published his memoir in October 2022, almost exactly one year before his death, and toured North America speaking openly about his addiction. At an event in Toronto in November 2023, he said five people had contacted him after reading the book and checked into treatment.
He said that was worth every word. When I die, he said that night, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want that to be the first thing. He had 11 days left.
On the morning of October 28, 2023, he was texting Jennifer Aniston. She later said he seemed happy. He had recently quit smoking and was getting back in shape, telling her things were good. Hours later, he was dead.
The surviving Friends cast members released a joint statement two days after his death, saying, “We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just castmates. We are a family. ”
Aniston has been the most willing of the five to speak about Perry since his death.
In November 2023, she posted a tribute on Instagram beginning “Oh boy, this one has cut deep,” including the last text message he had sent her, a message she described as “saying it all. ” She called him her little brother. In August 2025, speaking to Vanity Fair, she acknowledged that the cast had been mourning Perry long before he died, having watched the disease prove more powerful than all of them. As hard as it was, she said, “There’s a part of me that thinks this is better.
I’m glad he’s out of that pain. ”
The case that concluded on May 27, 2026, put on the public record the specific names and decisions of the people in the room at the end of Perry’s life. He was 54 years old and had already done what he said he wanted to do: written the book, helped people, and told the truth about his struggles. He needed more time to keep doing it.
Jennifer Aniston said in November 2025, “We miss him all the time. “
