‘Ketamine Queen’ to be sentenced for selling Matthew Perry the drugs that killed him
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman who admitted to selling Matthew Perry the ketamine that killed him is set to be sentenced Wednesday.
Jasveen Sangha will be the third defendant sentenced of the five people who have pleaded guilty in connection with the 2023 overdose of the 54-year-old actor. His role as Chandler Bing on NBC’s “Friends” in the 1990s and 2000s made him one of the biggest television stars of his era.
Sangha is the only one whose plea deal included an acknowledgment of causing Perry’s death, and is likely to get the stiffest sentence of the group by far.
Prosecutors are asking a federal judge in Los Angeles to sentence the 42-year-old Sangha to 15 years in prison. They cast her in court filings as a “Ketamine Queen” who had an elaborate drug operation catering to high-end clients to give herself a jet-setting lifestyle.
Sangha’s attorneys said in their sentencing filing that the time she has spent in jail since her August 2024 indictment should be sufficient, and prosecutors’ math on federal sentencing guidelines is “factually wrong.” They point to her lack of a previous criminal record and exemplary behavior as an inmate, as well as the unlikelihood she would return to a life of drug dealing.
Members of Perry’s family are expected to speak in court before the sentencing.
He was found dead in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death.
Perry, who had lifelong struggles with addiction, had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal off-label treatment for depression. But he wanted more than the doctor would give him. That at first led him to Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who admitted to illegally selling Perry ketamine and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison after prosecutors asked for three years. And it later led Perry to Sangha, who sold him 25 vials of ketamine, including the fatal dose, for $6,000 in cash four days before his death, prosecutors said.
Another doctor, who admitted to providing Plasencia the ketamine he sold to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention. Perry’s assistant and his friend, who admitted acting as the actor’s middlemen, are awaiting sentencing.
U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett has said she is seeking to calibrate how she sentences each of the five defendants to make sense as a whole.
In September, shortly before a scheduled trial, Sangha pleaded guilty to one count of using her home for drug distribution, three counts of distribution of ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. She also admitted to selling drugs to another man, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, who had no connection to Perry, before his overdose death in 2019.
The prosecution said that despite Sangha’s plea, she continued drug dealing, showing her lack of remorse.
A dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, Sangha moved from England to the U.S. at age 3, and when she was around age 10, her family settled in Southern California.
She didn’t know her father but has said her grandfather and stepfather were essential male influences in her life. Both recently died and it has had a “profound effect” on her, the defense said.
She is very close to her mother and grandmother, who would provide her with stability if she were released, her lawyers said.
Sangha has a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Irvine, and a master’s degree from Hult International Business School in England.
The defense used her biography to show she’s an educated and otherwise upstanding citizen who made an aberrant mistake when she fell into selling drugs.
The prosecution said her life circumstances show she didn’t act out of desperation, and that she freely chose to deal drugs to finance the posh lifestyle she wanted.
Sangha’s lawyers said she has been a model inmate in jail, maintaining sobriety and organizing and leading Narcotics Anonymous meetings.