Matthew Perry‘s sisters have submitted deeply emotional victim impact statements to the court ahead of Wednesday’s sentencing for the late actor’s personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, one of five people convicted of crimes connected to Perry’s passing in October 2023. In court filings submitted on May 20, Caitlin and Madeline Morrison described Iwamasa as a man who betrayed their brother most unimaginably, injecting him with ketamine and leaving him in a hot tub while misleading the grieving family about what had truly happened.Perry was found in his hot tub in October 2023, and the cause was determined to be the acute effects of ketamine. He was 54. According to the Department of Justice, Iwamasa had repeatedly injected Perry with ketamine without any medical training, including on the day he passed away.
What Matthew Perry’s sisters said in their victim impact statements
Madeline Morrison addressed her statement to U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Garnett, writing: “It is difficult to put into words the sense of betrayal I felt when I found out what Kenny had done. In many ways, it felt like my brother died all over again. Everything I believed about the day he died, everything Kenny told us, was a lie.”She went on to describe a particularly disturbing memory from the days following Perry’s passing. “A few days after Matthew died, my sister and I went to choose clothes for him to be buried in, one of the most surreal and heartbreaking experiences of my life,” she wrote. “I remember how manic and unsettled Kenny seemed. He repeatedly volunteered his version of events without being asked, as if he were being interviewed rather than mourning a friend. In reality, he was trying to distract us from the truth: that he had injected my brother with a lethal dose of ketamine and left him in a hot tub to die.”Madeline also described the pain of learning that Iwamasa had spoken at Perry’s funeral. “Kenny even spoke at Matthew’s funeral. The person responsible for my brother’s death stood up and addressed the people who loved him most. That is like a cruel joke I still struggle with. He didn’t just take my brother’s life, he tainted our final memories of saying goodbye.”
Caitlin Morrison and their mother’s statements
In a separate statement, sister Caitlin wrote that she has “no sympathy” for Iwamasa. “I cannot read Kenny’s 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.”She also accused him of attempting to manipulate the aftermath. “What I would not do is hound the grieving family left behind. I would not weave a story to cover my tracks. I would not try to extort a payout from a mother whose firstborn son’s life had been lost at my hands.”Perry’s mother, Suzanne Morrison, 82, also submitted a statement, writing: “Kenny’s most important job, by far, was to be my son’s companion and guardian in his fight against addiction. His number-one responsibility was to ensure that Matthew remained what he wanted to be: drug-free. And when he had killed my son, he kept a sharp eye on me.”
The wider case and Wednesday’s sentencing
According to the Department of Justice, Iwamasa conspired with Jasveen Sangha, Erik Fleming, and Dr. Salvador Plasencia to illegally obtain and distribute ketamine to Perry. Sangha, known as the “Ketamine Queen,” was sentenced to 15 years in prison in April after pleading guilty to multiple charges, including the distribution of ketamine resulting in serious bodily injury. Dr. Mark Chavez and others connected to the case have also pleaded guilty to various charges.Iwamasa’s sentencing is set for Wednesday, May 27, where he faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in fatal consequences.Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of 41 months in prison plus three years of supervised release, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.“For the past two and a half years, my family has been living a kind of sentence of our own,” Madeline wrote in closing. “When I think of Matthew, I want to smile again. I want to remember his laugh, his incredible humor, the game nights, and the movie marathons.”Perry, best known for his role as Chandler Bing in the beloved sitcom ‘Friends’, which ran for ten seasons from 1994 to 2004, remained one of the most cherished figures in television history. As Wednesday’s sentencing approaches, his family continues to seek accountability for a loss that has left an irreplaceable void both in their lives and in the hearts of millions of fans worldwide.
