'Ketamine Queen' agrees to plead guilty to selling drugs that killed Matthew Perry

Australia Broadcast Center

21 hours ago

A woman known as the "Ketamine Queen" has agreed to plead guilty after being charged with selling Matthew Perry the drug that killed him.
Jasveen Sangha has become the fifth and final defendant charged in the overdose death of the Friends star to strike a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, avoiding a trial that had been planned for September.
She had agreed to plead guilty to five federal criminal charges, including providing the ketamine that led to Perry's death, federal prosecutors said in a statement on Monday, local time.
Prosecutors had cast Ms Sangha, a 42-year-old citizen of the US and the UK, as a prolific drug dealer who was known to her customers as the "Ketamine Queen," using the term often in press releases and court documents and even including it in the official name of the case.
The statement said she had agreed to 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.
She admitted in the agreement to selling four vials of ketamine to another man, Cody McLaury, hours before he died from an overdose in 2019. Mr McLaury had no relationship to Perry.
Prosecutors will drop three other counts related to the distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of methamphetamine that was unrelated to the Perry case.
Ms Sangha will officially change her plea to guilty at an upcoming hearing, where sentencing will be scheduled, prosecutors say.
She could get up to 45 years in prison. An email sent to Ms Sangha's lawyers seeking comment was not immediately answered.
She and Salvador Plasencia, who signed his own plea deal on 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 Ms Sangha and Plasencia.
Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home by Iwamasa, his assistant, on October 28, 2023.
The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anaesthetic, 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 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 mega hit series.
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 dealt "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 $US6,000 ($9,240) in cash four days before his death. That purchase included the doses that killed Perry, prosecutors said.
On the day of Perry's death, Ms 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 have been sentenced yet.
AP