Content Advisory: This article discusses addiction, overdose, ketamine use, death, drowning, criminal sentencing, and family grief. Reader discretion is advised.
Matthew Perry’s family trusted Kenneth Iwamasa to help protect him during his long fight with addiction. Prosecutors say he became one of the people who helped supply and inject the ketamine that killed him.
Iwamasa, 60, was Perry’s live-in personal assistant, earning $150,000 a year. According to court filings, his role expanded far beyond household help. Prosecutors said he became a drug messenger, addiction enabler, and untrained stand-in for medical care.
On Oct. 28, 2023, Iwamasa injected Perry with the doses of ketamine that proved fatal, then left the actor alone while he ran errands. When he returned, Perry was dead in the Jacuzzi.
Perry’s Family Blames Assistant Above Others
Iwamasa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death. He was the first of five people charged in connection with Perry’s death to reach a plea deal, and he became one of the case’s most important witnesses.
Now, he is set to be sentenced, with prosecutors asking for a prison term of three years and five months.
Perry’s family has made clear they believe Iwamasa bears a heavy responsibility. “I have no sympathy for Kenny Iwamasa,” Perry’s younger sister Caitlin Morrison wrote in a letter to the judge. She said she will never know whether the lethal dose was accidental, but she knows Iwamasa either fled from what he had done or abandoned a vulnerable person in danger.
Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, said the family had known Iwamasa for decades and felt relieved when Perry hired him in 2022. “Mathew trusted Kenny. We trusted Kenny,” she wrote. “Kenny’s most important job, by far, was to be my son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction.” She added, “We trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.”
Assistant’s Lawyers Say He Could Not Say No
Iwamasa’s attorneys argued that he was an employee caught in a damaging power dynamic with Perry.
They wrote that he had “a particular vulnerability” in the relationship and “could not simply say no.” “That inability had tragic consequences,” they said.
Perry’s family rejected that framing. Suzanne Morrison said Iwamasa knew he could have called the family if Perry began demanding drugs, and his job would have been safe. Instead, prosecutors said Iwamasa helped obtain ketamine and gave Perry repeated injections in the final days of his life.
Family Says He Stayed Close After Perry’s Death
Perry’s mother also described feeling disturbed by Iwamasa’s behavior after her son died.
She said he continued contacting her, sending songs, helping her find her way around the cemetery, and calling when he saw rainbows, one of Perry’s favorite things.
He also spoke at Perry’s funeral. “The person responsible for my brother’s death stood up and addressed the people who loved him most,” Perry’s sister Madeline Morrison wrote. “That is like a cruel joke I still struggle with.” She added, “He didn’t just take my brother’s life. He tainted our final memories of saying goodbye.”
Truth About Ketamine Emerged Slowly
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner found ketamine was the primary cause of Perry’s death. Drowning was listed as a secondary cause.
Prosecutors said Iwamasa initially gave police a list of Perry’s medications but did not mention ketamine or the injections.
After investigators served a search warrant at Perry’s home in January 2024, Iwamasa slowly began admitting his role. He said he had given Perry six to eight ketamine injections per day in the final days of his life. According to prosecutors, Perry told him, “Shoot me up with a big one” on the day he died.
Iwamasa also said he worked with middleman Erik Fleming, who was sentenced to two years in prison, to obtain drugs from dealer Jasveen Sangha. Sangha pleaded guilty to selling Perry the ketamine that killed him and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Madeline Morrison said learning the truth made the family grieve Perry all over again. “Everything I believed about the day he died, everything Kenny told us, was a lie,” she wrote.
Perry died at 54. To fans, he remains Chandler Bing from ‘Friends’. To his family, he was Matthew, a son and brother whose final days are now being relived in court.
