Jasveen Sangha, who pleaded guilty last year to selling a fatal dose of ketamine to actor Matthew Perry, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday.
Known as the “Ketamine Queen”, Sangha was the fifth defendant to take a plea deal and admit guilt in the case and received the harshest sentence. Federal prosecutors had asked for the 15-year sentence for her role in Perry’s death and that of another individual, citing the “far-reaching scope of defendant’s illegality [and] her callous response to the deaths she helped cause”.
Sangha, who faced up to 65 years in prison, told the judge during Wednesday’s proceedings that she feels shame over her actions.
“These were not mistakes. They were horrible decisions,” she said, acknowledging that they “shattered people’s lives and the lives of their family and friends”.
Perry died aged 54 in October 2023 and officials ruled that the surgical anesthetic ketamine was the primary cause of his death. The Friends star, who had struggled with addiction for years, had previously taken ketamine legally to treat depression. But Perry’s doctor refused to give him the drug in the amounts he wanted, and he sought it from other sources.
Authorities charged five people in connection with the case: two doctors, Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez; the actor’s assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, who injected him with the drug before his death; Erik Fleming, an acquaintance of Perry’s; and Sangha.
The doctors did not supply the ketamine that killed Perry, but a judge told Plasencia that he and others helped the actor on the road to his death by “continuing to feed his ketamine addiction”. Sangha, 42, admitted to providing the actor with some 50 vials of ketamine before his death, while Fleming acted as a middleman.
In her plea agreement, Sangha admitted that she had distributed drugs, including ketamine and meth, from her home in North Hollywood since 2019. She also said she had sold ketamine to Cody McLaury, a 33-year-old who died in 2019 shortly after purchasing the drugs, as well as Perry, and continued dealing after learning of their deaths. Prosecutors pointed to these factors when arguing for a sentence of 15 years in prison.
“The defendant’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 prosecution said in court documents.
Sangha is from a privileged background, attended a “well-respected university” and earned a master’s degree, and sought to sell drugs for “greed, [glamour], and access”, prosecutors argued.
The defense argued, however, that Sangha had admitted responsibility and did not minimize her conduct. She is being represented by the high-profile defense attorneys Mark Geragos and Alexandra Kazarian, who said that Sangha had no criminal history and had taken part in recovery and rehabilitation programs while incarcerated. Her defense had said she should be released with time served.
“Ms Sangha’s demonstrated rehabilitation, including two years of sustained sobriety, consistent engagement in recovery programming, and strong community support, reflects a meaningful commitment to change and a low risk of recidivism,” the defense wrote in court documents.
Members of the Perry family asked that Sangha receive the maximum sentence, writing that the pain she’s caused is “irreversible”.
“Please give this heartless woman the maximum prison sentence so she won’t be able to hurt other families like ours,” Debbie Perry, the late actor’s stepmother, said in a statement to the court.
Perry’s stepfather, Keith Morrison, who is a correspondent for Dateline, said that he and the actor’s mother, Suzanne, had been left with “daily, grinding sadness and sorrow”.
“There was a spark to that man I have never seen anywhere else,” Morrison told the judge. “He should have had another act. Two more acts.”
Associated Press contributed reporting
