The Los Angeles woman who pleaded guilty to illegally selling the ketamine that killed “Friends” actor Matthew Perry was sentenced to 15 years behind bars and three years’ supervised release Wednesday.
Jasveen Sangha, known to her drug customers as the “Ketamine Queen,” pleaded guilty last fall to five federal charges related to Perry’s 2023 overdose death. She has been in federal custody since her arrest in August 2024.
In remarks to the courtroom, Sangha lamented her “poor choices” and “horrible decisions that ultimately proved tragic.”
“I pray for forgiveness every day,” Sangha added. “Thank you for giving me the harshest reality check of my life. Thank you for taking me out of the equation.”
“Dateline” correspondent Keith Morrison, Perry’s stepfather, praised the judge for delivering a “highly reasoned sentence,” adding: “We miss Matthew dreadfully, of course, and I feel badly for the perpetrator here as well. Nobody won today.”
In a March 25 court filing, federal prosecutors requested a prison sentence of 180 months, or 15 years, followed by three years’ supervised release. In the 24-page document, U.S. attorneys for the Central District of California called Sangha a “drug dealer who sold drugs that hurt people.”
When she learned she had sold the drugs that caused Perry’s death, the prosecutors wrote, “she didn’t care and kept selling.”
Sangha’s “actions show a cold callousness and disregard for life. She chose profits over people, and her actions have caused immense pain to the victims’ families and loved ones,” the prosecutors added.
In a 16-page response, Sangha’s defense lawyers insisted she has “accepted responsibility for serious criminal conduct” and asked the court to impose a sentence of time served.
“She does not minimize that conduct or the gravity of the consequences charged in this case,” Mark J. Geragos and Alexandra Kazarian wrote in their sentencing memorandum.
Perry, 54, was found face down in the heated end of his pool at his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles on Oct. 28, 2023. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office later attributed his death to an accidental overdose of ketamine, a hallucinogenic anesthetic that in recent years gained popularity as an off-label, unrelated treatment for depression.
Perry, best known for playing the sarcastic Chandler Bing on “Friends,” spoke candidly about his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction throughout his adult life. He chronicled some of those experiences in his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.”
In the Emmy-nominated actor’s final months, he had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety. But he sought unsupervised doses, developing a dependence on the drug that prosecutors said was “spiraling out of control.”
Sangha worked with a man named Erik Fleming to give ketamine to Perry, the U.S. attorneys behind the case have said, citing her plea agreement. The month Perry died, Sangha and Fleming sold the actor 51 vials of ketamine and provided them to Kenneth Iwamasa, his live-in personal assistant, according to prosecutors.
Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry with the ketamine leading up to his fatal overdose, including at least three shots on the day he died, prosecutors said.
Sangha, who lived in the North Hollywood neighborhood, called Fleming on the encrypted messaging application Signal after having learned from breaking news reports that Perry had died, according to prosecutors.
“Delete all our messages,” Sangha told Fleming.
Fleming pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. Iwamasa pleaded guilty the same month to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death.
The two men are scheduled to be sentenced later this month.
Sangha, a dual citizen of the U.S. and the U.K., pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.
She admitted to using her home to “store, package, and distribute narcotics,” including ketamine and methamphetamine, since at least 2019, prosecutors said.
Sangha has also admitted to selling four vials of ketamine to a victim identified by prosecutors as Cody McLaury in August 2019. McLaury died hours later from a drug overdose.
