A California woman known as the “Ketamine Queen” has agreed to plead guilty to federal drug charges in connection with Matthew Perry’s fatal overdose two years ago.
Jasveen Sangha, 42, will plead 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, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Sangha faces a maximum sentence of 65 years in prison, the prosecutor's office said in a news release.
Sangha is expected to enter the plea in the coming weeks, according to the release. Her sentencing date has not been set.
"She's taking responsibility for her actions," her attorney, Mark Geragos, said after the prosecutor's office announced the agreement.
Several other people, including two doctors and Perry’s live-in personal assistant, pleaded guilty to ketamine distribution charges in Perry’s death.
Perry, 54, was found face down in the heated end of his pool in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles on Oct. 28, 2023.
The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office attributed his death to an accidental overdose of ketamine, a hallucinogen long known as a party drug that has grown in popularity in recent years as an off-label treatment for depression.
Perry openly discussed his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, and he had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety. But federal prosecutors said he had sought — and received — unsupervised doses and developed an “out of control” dependence on the drug.
The medical examiner's office said the amount of ketamine found in his body was equivalent to the amount used in general anesthesia.
Sangha worked with an acquaintance of Perry’s, Erik Fleming, to ply Perry with the drug, according to the release, which cites the plea agreement.
In the weeks before his overdose, Sangha and Fleming, who also pleaded guilty to drug charges in connection with Perry's death, sold Perry 51 vials of ketamine, the release says.
The assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, then injected Perry with the drug. The prosecutor's office said he was responsible for administering the three injections that killed Perry.
"I’m 90% sure everyone is protected," Fleming wrote in a text message to Sangha after Perry's death, according to the release. "I never dealt with [Perry]. Only his Assistant. So the Assistant was the enabler. Also they are doing a 3 month tox screening . . . Does K stay in your system or is it immediately flushed out[?].”
According to the release, Sangha admitted selling four vials of ketamine to another man, Cory McLaury, in August 2019. McLaury died from a drug overdose hours later.
