{"id":470430,"date":"2026-05-28T00:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/470430\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T00:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T00:44:09","slug":"assistant-who-injected-matthew-perry-with-ketamine-before-his-death-jailed-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/470430\/","title":{"rendered":"Assistant who injected Matthew Perry with ketamine before his death jailed \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The personal assistant who \u200cinjected Friends star Matthew Perry<\/a> with a fatal dose of the hallucinogenic drug ketamine was sentenced to 41 months \u200cin federal prison on Wednesday, bringing to a close the prosecution of five people who admitted to playing roles in the \u200bactor\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Judge Sherilyn Garnett delivered the sentence for Kenneth Iwamasa, the person who found Perry floating face down and lifeless in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home in October 2023. Federal prosecutors in said Iwamasa injected Perry \u200bwith ketamine at the actor\u2019s request before leaving the residence to run errands. Perry was dead when Iwamasa returned.<\/p>\n

An autopsy \u2060report concluded that Perry died from the \u201cacute effects of ketamine,\u201d which combined with other \u200cfactors \u200cin causing \u200bhim to lose consciousness and drown.<\/p>\n

Ketamine, a short-acting but potent anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and other psychological disorders \u2060but has gained popularity as an \u200billicit party drug.<\/p>\n

Iwamasa had pleaded guilty to one \u200bcount of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death. As part of a plea agreement, he \u200cadmitted to repeatedly injecting Perry with ketamine without \u200bmedical training, including the lethal dose.<\/p>\n

Under the deal, he provided key evidence against \u2060other defendants.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors in Los Angeles had asked for at least \u206041 months in \u200bfederal prison for Iwamasa, who met Perry in 1992 and had been his live-in assistant since 2022. They called him Perry\u2019s \u201cenabler and drug supplier\u201d in court documents filed ahead of the sentencing.<\/p>\n

Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry throughout October 2023 with ketamine and at least twice found him unconscious but kept administering the drug, they said. Another time, he saw Perry \u201cfreeze\u201d and lose the ability to speak after receiving a ketamine injection from a \u200cdoctor.<\/p>\n

Before his death at \u2060age 54, Perry had acknowledged decades of substance abuse that overlapped with the height of his fame playing the sardonic but charming Chandler Bing on the 1990s \u200chit NBC television comedy Friends.<\/p>\n

Two doctors, a drug dealer and a go-between who helped obtain ketamine were previously sentenced in \u200bthe case. Jasveen Sangha, a dealer dubbed the \u201cKetamine Queen,\u201d received the longest \u200bsentence of 15 years in prison. – Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The personal assistant who \u200cinjected Friends star Matthew Perry with a fatal dose of the hallucinogenic drug ketamine…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,33662],"class_list":["post-470430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-matthew-perry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}