A Los Angeles woman dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for selling drugs that led to the death of Friends actor Matthew Perry.
Jasveen Sangha, 42, pleaded guilty last September to five charges, including one count of distributing ketamine resulting in death or bodily injury.
Prosecutors described the American-British dual-national’s home as a “drug-selling emporium” that funded a lavish lifestyle.
Perry, who had struggled with addiction for years, was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home in October 2023. Investigators determined his death was caused by the acute effects of ketamine.
Ketamine is a dissociative anaesthetic that has some hallucinogenic effects and is supposed to be administered only by a physician.
Ahead of Sangha’s sentencing, Perry’s stepmother Debbie Perry, asked the judge to hand the maximum possible prison sentence.
Sangha caused “irreversible” damage, Debbie Perry said in a victim impact statement submitted to the California court on Tuesday.
“You caused this… You who has talent for business enough to make money chose the one way that hurts people,” she said. “Please give this heartless woman the maximum prison sentence so she won’t be able to hurt other families like ours.”
Federal authorities found dozens of ketamine vials during a raid at Sangha’s Los Angeles home and accused her of supplying the injectable drug from her “stash house” in North Hollywood since at least 2019.
Thousands of pills that included methamphetamine, cocaine and Xanax were also found.
Sangha initially denied the charges but agreed to change her plea in August, just weeks before her trial was scheduled to begin.
As part of her plea agreement, she also pleaded guilty to selling ketamine to a man named Cody McLaury in August 2019, who died hours after the purchase from a drug overdose, according to the justice department.
She faced a maximum sentence of 65 years in federal prison, according to the justice department.
Sangha has been detained since August of 2024, according to her attorneys.
Several letters in support of Sangha were also filed in court by her family and friends.
Sangha’s lawyers in March requested the judge to issue a more lenient sentence, arguing she had “accepted responsibility for serious criminal conduct” and did not have a prior record.
Perry, best known for playing wise-cracking Chandler Bing in the long-running 1990s US TV sitcom Friends, struggled for decades with substance addiction and had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression. Sangha is one of five people – including medical doctors and the actor’s assistant – who US officials say supplied ketamine to Perry, exploiting his drug addiction for profit, and leading to his overdose death.
The other four also agreed to plead guilty to charges in the case.
Dr Salvador Plasencia, who supplied the actor with ketamine in the weeks before his death, was sentenced in December to 30 months in prison.
Also in December, Dr Mark Chavez, a California doctor who sold the ketamine to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention and three years of supervised release.
The San Diego-based physician admitted to obtaining ketamine from his clinic and a wholesale distributor through a fraudulent prescription and sold it to Plasencia, who then supplied it to Perry.
Perry’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, who helped purchase and inject the actor with ketamine, is scheduled to be sentenced later this month but his legal team has requested a postponement.
Eric Fleming, who sold ketamine he obtained from Sangha to Perry, is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
By BBC News
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