LOS ANGELES (AP) — A woman known as the “Ketamine Queen,” charged with selling Matthew Perry the drug that killed him, agreed to plead guilty Monday.
Jasveen Sangha is the last of five defendants charged in the overdose death of a “Friends” star to reach a plea deal with federal prosecutors, thus sidestepping a trial initially set for September.
She has consented to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, which include supplying the ketamine that caused Perry’s death, according to a statement by federal prosecutors.
The prosecutors had labeled Sangha, a 42-year-old dual citizen of the U.S. and the U.K., as a significant drug trafficker, dubbing her the “Ketamine Queen” in their press releases, court documents, and even the official case title.
She has agreed to plead guilty to maintaining a drug-involved location, three counts of ketamine distribution, and one count of ketamine distribution that resulted in death or serious bodily injury.
In the agreement, she confessed to selling four vials of ketamine to Cody McLaury hours before his overdose death in 2019. McLaury had no connection to Perry.
As part of the agreement, prosecutors will dismiss three additional counts tied to ketamine distribution and one count of methamphetamine distribution not related to Perry’s case.
Sangha will officially change her plea to guilty at an upcoming hearing, where sentencing will be scheduled, prosecutors said. She could get up to 45 years in prison. An email sent to Sangha’s lawyers seeking comment was not immediately answered.
She and Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who signed his own plea deal June 16, had been the primary targets of the investigation. Three other defendants — Dr. Mark Chavez, Kenneth Iwamasa and Erik Fleming — agreed to plead guilty last year in exchange for their cooperation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia.
Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home by Iwamasa, his assistant, on Oct. 28, 2023. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death.
The actor had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal, but off-label, treatment for depression, which has become increasingly common. Perry, 54, sought more ketamine than his doctor would give him. He began getting it from Plasencia about a month before his death, then started getting still more from Sangha about two weeks before his death, prosecutors said.
Perry and Iwamasa found Sangha through Perry’s friend Fleming. In their plea agreements, both men described the subsequent deals in detail.
Fleming messaged Iwamasa saying Sangha’s ketamine was “unmarked but it’s amazing,” according to court documents. Fleming texted Iwamasa that she only deals “with high end and celebs. If it were not great stuff she’d lose her business.”
With the two men acting as middlemen, Perry bought large amounts of ketamine from Sangha, including 25 vials for $6,000 in cash four days before his death. That purchase included the doses that killed Perry, prosecutors said.
On the day of Perry’s death, Sangha told Fleming they should delete all the messages they had sent each other, according to her indictment.
Her home in North Hollywood, California, was raided in March 2024 by Drug Enforcement Administration agents who found large amounts of methamphetamines and ketamine, according to an affidavit from an agent. She was indicted that June, arrested that August and has been held in jail since.
None of the defendants has yet been sentenced.
Perry struggled with addiction for years, dating back to his time on “Friends,” when he became one of the biggest stars of his generation as Chandler Bing. He starred alongside Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer for 10 seasons from 1994 to 2004 on NBC’s megahit series.
