‘Ketamine queen' to plead guilty to supplying dose that killed actor Matthew Perry
Accused 'stash house' operator faced trial next month
Fatal doses she supplied were injected by Perry's assistant
By Lisa Richwine and Steve Gorman
Jasveen Sangha, 42, who authorities said ran an illegal narcotics 'stash house' in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles and was due tostand trial in September, will plead guilty to five charges under a deal with federal prosecutors, according to theU.S. Justice Department.
Four other co-defendants in the case – two physicians, Perry's personal assistant and another man who admitted acting as an intermediary in selling ketamine to the actor – have already pleaded guilty to various charges, though none has yet been sentenced.
All five were charged in the case one year ago.
Prosecutors said Sangha agreed to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of illegal distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.
Sangha, a dual U.S.-British citizen, is expected to formally enter her plea in the coming weeks, the Justice Department said in a statement.
The charge of maintaining a drug den carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Sangha faces up to 15 years in prison for ketamine distribution that killed Perry, and 10 years for each of the three other distribution counts.
Medical examiners concluded that Perry died from acute effects of ketamine that combined with other factors to cause the actor to lose consciousness and drown in his hot tub on October 28, 2023. He was 54 years old.
FAME AND ADDICTION
Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including periods that overlapped with the height of his fame playing the sardonic but charming Chandler Bing on the 1990s hit NBC television comedy 'Friends.'
Perry's death came a year after publication of his memoir, 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,' which chronicled bouts with addiction to prescription painkillers and alcohol that he wrote had come close to ending his life more than once.
His autopsy cited interviews with associates who said Perry had been sober for 19 months prior to his death with no known substance abuse relapses.
Ketamine, a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and anxiety but also is abused by recreational users.
According to Sangha's plea agreement as outlined by the Justice Department, Sangha had supplied 51 vials of ketamine from her stash house to a go-between dealer, Erik Fleming, 55, who in turn sold the doses to Perry through his live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, 60.
It was Iwamasa, prosecutors said, who later injected Perry with at least three shots of ketamine from the vials Sangha supplied, resulting in the actor's death, and who subsequently found him lifeless in the hot tub.
In her plea agreement, prosecutors said, Sangha also admitted selling ketamine to an individual in August 2019 who died hours later from a drug overdose.
Known to her customers on the street as the 'ketamine queen,' according to prosecutors, Sangha had used her North Hollywood home to store, package and distribute various narcotics, including ketamine and methamphetamine, dating back to at least June 2019.
After learning of news reports of Perry's death, prosecutors said, Sangha tried to scrub her Signal app of all her communications with Fleming and urged him to do likewise, instructing him to 'Delete all our messages.'
Her plea deal came three weeks after a doctor who ran an urgent care clinic, Salvador Plasencia, 43, pleaded guilty to four counts of ketamine distribution and admitted to having injected Perry with the drug at the actor's home and in the back seat of a parked car.
Another physician, Mark Chavez, 55, of San Diego, accused of illegally supplying ketamine to Plasencia, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute the drug.
According to court filings, Plasencia had once texted Chavez about Perry, writing, 'I wonder how much this moron will pay.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
IOL News
6 hours ago
- IOL News
Root out rogue prosecutors, Kubayi warns NPA leadership
Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has urged the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to clean house and regain the country's trust in the justice system. Image: Justice Department Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi has issued a strong call to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to restore its stature as the 'heartbeat of the justice system' amid growing concerns over ethical lapses, systemic delays, and perceptions of corruption within the institution. Speaking at the NPA Leadership Conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Kubayi urged prosecutors to recommit to ethical excellence and public accountability. Her call follows troubling recent allegations made by NPA head Shamila Batohi and KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who both raised concerns over rogue elements within the prosecutorial system compromising justice. 'We must remain the voice of the voiceless victims and defend the weak against those who abuse power,' Kubayi said. 'Where there is no ethics and integrity, institutions collapse — and we've seen this during state capture. 'Now, as we grapple with new allegations under the Madlanga Commission, the NPA must stand up and prove it is not complicit.' Batohi recently warned of deeply embedded corruption that threatened the rule of law, while Mkhwanazi accused some judicial officials of colluding with criminals by deliberately weakening cases. Kubayi did not shy away from these claims, instead challenging the NPA to urgently root out unethical conduct. 'If we allow the perception that criminals' rights trump those of victims to persist, we will lose the public's trust entirely. A crime is never victimless,' she added. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ Kubayi emphasized the urgency of adapting to emerging threats, including AI-generated child sexual abuse material and AI-driven financial crimes. She commended the NPA's efforts in helping South Africa exit the FATF greylist, led by Ismail Momoniat, but warned that new technologies could further complicate prosecution efforts unless rapid skills development takes place. 'A repositioned NPA must be ethical, skilled, and victim-focused. It must become the employer of choice for young legal professionals, and the strongest pillar of a developmental state,' she declared. Additionally, Kubayi called for a prosecutor-driven, collaborative approach to case management to reduce delays, deliver fair outcomes, and rebuild faith in the justice system. 'In a repositioned NPA, justice must not only be done — it must be seen and felt,' she said. IOL Politics
IOL News
11 hours ago
- IOL News
Understanding the Emissary Syndrome: Redi Tlhabi and Fanon's Warning
Gillian Schutte writes Fanon's warning about the colonised intellectual rings true today as Redi Tlhabi navigates her role in South Africa's media landscape, embodying the complex relationship between power, recognition, and betrayal. Image: Supplied Fanon warned that the colonised intellectual, intoxicated by proximity to power, becomes emissary of the coloniser in her own land. She is rewarded abroad, adorned with credentials, and sent back to discipline her own people in the master's idiom. The tragedy is not simply betrayal but the psychic disavowal that makes betrayal feel like virtue. Redi Tlhabi now embodies this role with unsettling clarity. She entered the national consciousness as Redi Direko, working in SABC current affairs between 2002 and 2005, reporting on the fragile birth of the African Union, Sierra Leone's demilitarisation and Rwanda's post-genocide transition. By 2005 she had become the voice of Talk Radio 702, hosting a daily show for more than a decade. She chastised politicians and soothed liberal donors, embodying a modern African professionalism that looked critical yet reassured capital. In 2008 she fronted ENCA's 24-hour launch, becoming the first face to greet viewers on South Africa's new rolling news channel. The decisive crucible came in 2009 with The Big Debate. The show carried the hallmarks of artifice: it looked urgent, staged conflict, but was framed for international broadcasters and the donor gaze. Produced by Ben Cashdan, a British-born man who arrived in South Africa in the mid-1990s, attached himself to Mandela's presidency and whose earlier history remains conspicuously absent, the programme became the perfect grooming ground. Direko, who became Tlhabi after marrying Johannesburg gynaecologist Brian Tlhabi in 2010, mastered the skill of performing defiance while knowing the parameters were fixed. It is the gallant effort of pretending one is resisting when one is already repeating the master's script. From there she was export-ready. Al Jazeera gave her South2North. The BBC placed her at Newsday in 2022. National Geographic made her the face of Women of Impact. She moderated for the UN General Assembly, COP summits, World Bank meetings and The Elders. She shared stages with Oprah, Kofi Annan and John Kerry. Her CV accumulated the honours of donor royalty: Section27, Women in Cities International, the Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity at Columbia and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the UN Global Journalists Corps. She became living proof that empire rewards its interpreters. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading By September 2023 she was summoned to Washington to testify before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa. She warned of South Africa's democratic fragility, invoked Russian interference and pleaded with Congress to keep PEPFAR and AGOA intact. These invitations do not arrive from nowhere. They are brokered by Atlantic Council, CSIS, Wilson Center and the donor-contractor nexus of Brussels, Google, Gates and Soros. The prize was her reach: a polished Black South African voice who could reassure Washington that its story would echo back into African homes. When criticism mounted, Chris Roper came to her defence. Roper, once Mail & Guardian editor and now Deputy CEO of Code for Africa, inhabits the same donor ecosystem. Code thrives on EU, NED, Google and Gates funding. His move was predictable: protect the operator, protect the network. In this system, emissaries are never left exposed. Her current pulpit is The Readiness Report, a Daily Maverick podcast — the most overtly donor-aligned outlet in South Africa. And it was here, just this week, that her role became unmistakable. She used General Rudzani Maphwanya's visit to Tehran, where he met Iran's army chief and condemned the bloodletting in Gaza, as a pretext for imperial ventriloquism. Her tone grew urgent, verging on hysterical. 'I want you to hear this. I need you to listen.' She repeated her nausea, threatened to vomit, as though retching could substitute for analysis. Here the psychoanalytic symptom revealed itself. The nausea, the bodily threat to expel, is the mark of disavowal. She cannot admit that she speaks for empire, so her body stages the denial. It is the unconscious saying what the polished voice cannot: that the script she repeats is indigestible, that it sickens even her, that to carry the coloniser's message requires constant repression. But rather than confront that truth, she projects the sickness outward, onto DIRCO, onto Iran, onto Russia, onto those who defy Washington. She warned South Africans against even imagining that Iran could be an ally, or that Russia and China could be trusted partners. BRICS was permitted only 'within reason.' Iran was reduced to a caricature of women-killers, erasing the complex reality of a society where women are highly educated and publicly visible. Russia was cast as rogue. The disciplining was unmistakable. South Africans were told to abandon their own agency, to accept the master's map of the world. And they have rejected her. Black South Africans have seen through the artifice and turned away. They denounce her with the bitterness reserved for betrayal. They call her an Uncle Ruckus in high heels, a ventriloquist's doll for empire. They say her words drip with contempt for African intelligence, that her voice no longer belongs to them. Her nausea, her insistence on being heard, her sanctimony — all of it is read as the arrogance of someone who has crossed over. She is mocked, derided, cast out of the circle of respect. In the townships and the streets, in the comment threads and the conversations, the verdict repeats itself: she is no longer one of us. Fanon warned that colonialism would implant in the colonised a desire for the coloniser's recognition, and Lacan would call this the ego-ideal: the subject lives through the gaze of the Other. Tlhabi's entire trajectory bears this mark. She speaks less to South Africans than to Washington and Brussels, performing Africanness for their applause. The contradiction tears her in two — an African body carrying a European superego. Zizek might call this the perversion of ideology: the subject knows the system is violent, knows it erases her people's sovereignty, yet clings to it all the more because her status depends on it. History will not absolve her. Redi Tlhabi may remain adored on donor stages, but at home she has become the mirror of Fanon's most dire warning — the colonised intellectual who betrays her people while convincing herself she is saving them, trapped in a psychic knot where empire is both her master and her mirror. Fanon's warning about the colonised intellectual rings true today as Redi Tlhabi navigates her role in South Africa's media landscape, embodying the complex relationship between power, recognition, and betrayal. Image: IOL
Daily Maverick
14 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
‘Ketamine queen' to plead guilty to supplying dose that killed actor Matthew Perry
Jasveen Sangha would be last of five to plead guilty in case Accused 'stash house' operator faced trial next month Fatal doses she supplied were injected by Perry's assistant By Lisa Richwine and Steve Gorman Jasveen Sangha, 42, who authorities said ran an illegal narcotics 'stash house' in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles and was due tostand trial in September, will plead guilty to five charges under a deal with federal prosecutors, according to theU.S. Justice Department. Four other co-defendants in the case – two physicians, Perry's personal assistant and another man who admitted acting as an intermediary in selling ketamine to the actor – have already pleaded guilty to various charges, though none has yet been sentenced. All five were charged in the case one year ago. Prosecutors said Sangha agreed to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of illegal distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. Sangha, a dual U.S.-British citizen, is expected to formally enter her plea in the coming weeks, the Justice Department said in a statement. The charge of maintaining a drug den carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Sangha faces up to 15 years in prison for ketamine distribution that killed Perry, and 10 years for each of the three other distribution counts. Medical examiners concluded that Perry died from acute effects of ketamine that combined with other factors to cause the actor to lose consciousness and drown in his hot tub on October 28, 2023. He was 54 years old. FAME AND ADDICTION Perry had publicly acknowledged decades of substance abuse, including periods that overlapped with the height of his fame playing the sardonic but charming Chandler Bing on the 1990s hit NBC television comedy 'Friends.' Perry's death came a year after publication of his memoir, 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,' which chronicled bouts with addiction to prescription painkillers and alcohol that he wrote had come close to ending his life more than once. His autopsy cited interviews with associates who said Perry had been sober for 19 months prior to his death with no known substance abuse relapses. Ketamine, a short-acting anesthetic with hallucinogenic properties, is sometimes prescribed to treat depression and anxiety but also is abused by recreational users. According to Sangha's plea agreement as outlined by the Justice Department, Sangha had supplied 51 vials of ketamine from her stash house to a go-between dealer, Erik Fleming, 55, who in turn sold the doses to Perry through his live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, 60. It was Iwamasa, prosecutors said, who later injected Perry with at least three shots of ketamine from the vials Sangha supplied, resulting in the actor's death, and who subsequently found him lifeless in the hot tub. In her plea agreement, prosecutors said, Sangha also admitted selling ketamine to an individual in August 2019 who died hours later from a drug overdose. Known to her customers on the street as the 'ketamine queen,' according to prosecutors, Sangha had used her North Hollywood home to store, package and distribute various narcotics, including ketamine and methamphetamine, dating back to at least June 2019. After learning of news reports of Perry's death, prosecutors said, Sangha tried to scrub her Signal app of all her communications with Fleming and urged him to do likewise, instructing him to 'Delete all our messages.' Her plea deal came three weeks after a doctor who ran an urgent care clinic, Salvador Plasencia, 43, pleaded guilty to four counts of ketamine distribution and admitted to having injected Perry with the drug at the actor's home and in the back seat of a parked car. Another physician, Mark Chavez, 55, of San Diego, accused of illegally supplying ketamine to Plasencia, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute the drug. According to court filings, Plasencia had once texted Chavez about Perry, writing, 'I wonder how much this moron will pay.'
