{"id":8783,"date":"2026-05-22T17:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8783"},"modified":"2026-05-22T17:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T17:04:17","slug":"matthew-perrys-family-trusted-his-assistant-to-help-keep-him-sober-he-instead-helped-him-overdose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8783","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Perry\u2019s family trusted his assistant to help keep him sober. He instead helped him overdose"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By ANDREW DALTON, AP Entertainment Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Matthew Perry paid Kenneth Iwamasa $150,000 a year to be his live-in personal assistant. His role for the \u201cFriends\u201d star would expand to drug messenger, addiction enabler and de facto doctor, according to court filings.<\/p>\n

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Iwamasa injected Perry with the doses of ketamine that would prove fatal on Oct. 28, 2023, and then left the actor to run errands. He returned to find Perry dead in the Jacuzzi.<\/p>\n

The ex-assistant became the first to reach a plea deal of five people indicted in connection with Perry\u2019s death. On Wednesday, he\u2019ll become the last to be sentenced. Prosecutors are asking for a prison term of three years and five months. That\u2019s more than the 2 1\/2-year sentence of the doctor who sold Iwamasa ketamine and taught him to inject it into Perry, but far less than the 15-year sentence of the admitted drug dealer who sold Iwamasa the final doses.<\/p>\n

Iwamasa, 60, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death and became the case\u2019s most important witness in the indictments of his four co-defendants. That is virtually certain to lead to a lighter sentence.<\/p>\n

Family members blame the assistant above all others<\/h4>\n

\u201cI have no sympathy for Kenny Iwamasa,\u201d Perry\u2019s younger sister Caitlin Morrison wrote in a letter to the judge. \u201cI wasn\u2019t there the night my brother died. I cannot read Kenny\u2019s thoughts. I will never know if the lethal dose of ketamine was only lethal by accident. But I know that when Kenny left the house, he was doing one of two things. He was either escaping from something he knew he had done or he was willfully abandoning a vulnerable person in a dangerous situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perry\u2019s mother Suzanne Morrison wrote that her son and the family had known Iwamasa for decades, and that relatives were relieved when Perry, who\u2019d had recurring struggles with addiction throughout his life, hired the assistant in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatthew trusted Kenny. We trusted Kenny. Kenny\u2019s most important job \u2014 by far \u2014 was to be my son\u2019s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction,\u201d she wrote. \u201cWe trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Iwamasa\u2019s lawyers argued that he was an employee doing the bidding of his boss.<\/p>\n

In a presentencing filing, they said Iwamasa had \u201ca particular vulnerability to the relationship dynamic which he fell into with the victim. In short, he could not \u2018simply say no.\u2019 That inability had tragic consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suzanne Morrison said Iwamasa knew he could call any family member should Perry start making drug demands, and his job would be safe.<\/p>\n

Family disgusted by Iwamasa\u2019s behavior following Perry\u2019s death<\/h4>\n

Perry\u2019s mother wrote, \u201cWhen he had killed my son, he kept a sharp eye on me. He sent me songs, he drew a little map to help me find my way around the cemetery. If he saw a rainbow \u2014 one of Matthew\u2019s favorite things \u2014 he would call me. He insisted on speaking at Matthew\u2019s funeral. He clung to me and the family as if he was somehow the good guy who tried to save Matthew.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

She said Iwamasa expected a financial payout, and when it was clear he wouldn\u2019t get one, he threatened legal action.<\/p>\n

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Iwamasa did speak at the funeral, which would later leave the family disgusted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe person responsible for my brother\u2019s death stood up and addressed the people who loved him most,\u201d another sister, Madeline Morrison, wrote. \u201cThat is like a cruel joke I still struggle with. He didn\u2019t just take my brother\u2019s life \u2014 he tainted our final memories of saying goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Truth about the ketamine was slow to come out<\/h4>\n

The LA County Medical Examiner found that ketamine, a surgical anesthetic that has become widely used for other purposes both legal and illegal, was the primary cause of Perry\u2019s death. Drowning was a secondary cause.<\/p>\n

On the day of Perry\u2019s death, Iwamasa gave police a list of all the medications Perry was taking, but he left off ketamine and said nothing about the injections, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n

After investigators served a search warrant on the house in January 2024, that began to change, and he would slowly admit his role in Perry\u2019s death. Iwamasa said he had been giving Perry six to eight injections of ketamine per day in the last days of his life, and that Perry had told him, \u201cShoot me up with a big one\u201d on the day he died.<\/p>\n

Iwamasa said he had worked with middleman Erik Fleming, who was sentenced to two years in prison May 13, to get drugs from dealer Jasveen Sangha.<\/p>\n

In his first text to Fleming, Iwamasa said, \u201cAlfred here batmans butler. He said I can text you directly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Madeline Morrison wrote that when the truth emerged, \u201cIt felt like my brother died all over again. Everything I believed about the day he died\u2014everything Kenny told us\u2014was a lie. I had to relive Matthew\u2019s death from an entirely new and devastating perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iwamasa pleaded guilty in August 2024 before the case became public. Wednesday will be his first court appearance since.<\/p>\n

Perry, who died at 54, became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing on \u201cFriends,\u201d NBC\u2019s culture-changing sitcom that ran from 1994 to 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was my Matso, my Manew,\u201d his mother wrote. \u201cHe was, in spite of all we went through, my heart and my soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Matthew Perry’s assistant is set to become the last defendant sentenced in the investigation of the drug death of the \u201cFriends\u201d star.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-based-on-facts-either-observed-and-verified-directly-by-the-reporter-or-reported-and-verified-from-knowledgeable-sources","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nMatthew Perry\u2019s family trusted his assistant to help keep him sober. He instead helped him overdose - Silicon Valley Moving Post<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=8783\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Matthew Perry\u2019s family trusted his assistant to help keep him sober. 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