A 42-year-old known as the “Ketamine Queen” pleaded guilty on Wednesday to multiple federal charges linked to “Friends” actor Matthew Perry’s fatal overdose in 2023.
According to NBC News, 42-year-old Jasveen Sangha pleaded guilty to five charges on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and now could face up to 65 years in prison.
In a press release last month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California confirmed that Sangha had agreed to plead guilty to three counts of ketamine distribution, one count of ketamine distribution resulting in serious bodily injury or death, and one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises.
NBC News reported that Mark Geragos, Sangha’s attorney, claimed that the 42-year-old, who is a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States, is “taking responsibility for her actions” by pleading guilty.
According to NBC News, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that Perry’s death was the result of an accidental ketamine overdose after the famous actor was discovered dead in his pool on October 28, 2023, at the age of 54. The outlet noted that while Perry had received ketamine infusion therapy as treatment for anxiety and depression in the months prior to his death, prosecutors claimed he was also trying to obtain unsupervised doses of the drug and that his dependence on ketamine was “spiraling out of control.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California explained that Sangha coordinated with a man named Erik Fleming to “knowingly distribute ketamine to Perry, a successful actor and author whose struggles with drug addiction were well documented.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office noted that Sangha and Fleming sold 51 vials of ketamine and gave them to Kenneth Iwamasa, Perry’s personal assistant.
“Leading up to Perry’s death, Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry with the ketamine that Sangha supplied to Fleming,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California stated. “Specifically, on October 28, 2023, Iwamasa injected Perry with at least three shots of Sangha’s ketamine, which caused Perry’s death.”
In the recent press release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California noted that Sangha also admitted to selling four ketamine vials to another victim, who died from a drug overdose in 2019; to possessing drugs with the intent to distribute them at her residence in North Hollywood; and to using her residence to store and distribute multiple narcotics since June of 2019.
