Prosecutors announced Thursday that Matthew Perry’s assistant pleaded guilty to administering the ketamine to the late Friends star that caused his death.
Matthew Perry and Kenny Iwamasa PHOTO: X Josiah Williams
Iwamasa now faces up to 15 years in prison following an arrest that also led to the indictment of four other defendants, including a Los Angeles doctor who supplied Perry with the deadly drug, writes dailymail.co.uk.
Last November, DailyMail.com revealed that Iwamasa lived with Perry and worked as his assistant until his death.
The Justice Department said Iwamasa injected Perry with ketamine on the day he died on October 28, 2023.
California prosecutors announced Thursday that Iwamasa, 59, of Toluca Lake, pleaded guilty Aug. 7 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.
Assistant “admitted to repeatedly injecting Perry with ketamine without medical training, including administering multiple injections to Perry on October 28, 2023 – the day Perry died“, stated the DoJ.
They also accused Jasveen Sangha, 41, whom they labeled as “Queen of Ketamine” of North Hollywood, Salvador Plasencia, 42, a physician from Santa Monica, Eric Fleming, 54, of Hawthorne, and Dr. Mark Chavez, 54, of San Diego.
Police obtained text messages between the two doctors who planned to sell ketamine to Perry, saying: “I wonder how much this idiot will pay’ and ‘Let’s find out’.
Plasencia is charged with conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Sangha, who holds dual British and American citizenship, is charged with a number of offences, including one count of maintaining a drug premises, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent of distributing ketamine and seven counts of distribution of ketamine, as well as two counts of altering and falsifying documents or records related to the federal investigation.
Fleming admitted to distributing the ketamine that killed Perry and pleaded guilty on August 8 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
Fleming admitted receiving 25 vials of ketamine from Sangha and giving them to assistant Iwamasa four days before Perry’s death.
Prosecutors said Dr. Chavez agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, admitting that he sold the drug to Plasencia and obtained it “by making false statements to a wholesale distributor of ketamine and presenting a prescription fraudulently on behalf of a former patient, without his knowledge or consent”.
Perry lived in a Beverly Hills home with Iwamasa until just weeks before his untimely death.
According to sources close to the star, he is the one who discovered Perry’s lifeless body in the hot tub of his newly renovated home on October 28.
The actor had been renting a three-bedroom hillside home overlooking Beverly Hills and the ocean for more than a year for $49,000 a month while his $6 million home in Pacific Palisades was undergoing renovations.
He lived with Iwamasa, an executive assistant who helped Perry manage his businesses for more than 25 years.
Homeowner John Malakzad identified Iwamasa as “a person who lives with Perry and monitors him.”
Iwamasa was photographed driving Perry, 54, around Los Angeles on errands and leaving the Beverly Hills home in the morning, photos obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com have revealed.
As his personal assistant, Iwamasa is said to have been the one who found his body.
