Los AngelesAP\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n The final sentencing in the 2 1\/2-year investigation and prosecution following the drug death of Matthew Perry<\/a> will be of the personal assistant who sat at the center of the entire affair, buying the ketamine that would cause the death of the \u201cFriends\u201d star and injecting him with the lethal dose.\n <\/p>\n \n Kenneth Iwamasa<\/a>, 60, is set to be sentenced Wednesday in the Los Angeles federal courtroom of Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, who has sentenced four of his co-defendants in the past year. The hearing began with family members of both Perry and Iwamasa in court.\n <\/p>\n \n He was the first of them to reach a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death. Wednesday will be his first court appearance since the case became public knowledge.\n <\/p>\n \n Iwamasa became the most important witness for the prosecution. They are asking Garnett to sentence him to three years and five months in prison, significantly less than what he might have faced without cooperating, but still more than all but one of his co-defendants.\n <\/p>\n \n Iwamasa\u2019s lawyers said in a court filing he was an employee doing his employer\u2019s bidding and had a \u201cparticular vulnerability\u201d in his relationship to Perry. \u201cIn short, he could not \u2018simply say no.\u2019 That inability had tragic consequences.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Perry\u2019s family members, some of whom may speak in court, made it clear in letters to the judge that there is no one they blame for his death more than Iwamasa \u2014 a longtime friend they thought would help the actor maintain sobriety but instead indulged the worst impulses of a lifelong addict.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cMathew 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 wrote Perry\u2019s mother, Suzanne Morrison. \u201cWe trusted a man without a conscience, and my son paid the price.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Perry had hired Iwamasa in 2022, and he was paying him $150,000 a year to live at his Los Angeles home and act as his assistant.\n <\/p>\n \n The actor had been taking the surgical anesthetic ketamine legally for depression, an increasingly common off-label use. But he wanted more than his doctor would give him.\n <\/p>\n \n According to Iwamasa\u2019s plea agreement, he bought off-the-books ketamine from another doctor, Salvador Plasencia<\/a>, who taught him how to inject it. Plasencia was sentenced to 2 1\/2 years in prison in July.\n <\/p>\n \n Iwamasa also began buying ketamine from Perry acquaintance Erik Fleming<\/a>, who was getting it from a street dealer. Fleming was sentenced to two years in prison two weeks ago.\n <\/p>\n