Almost two years after Friends star Matthew Perry's death due to drug overdose, Jasveen Sangha, known as the 'Ketamine Queen', has agreed to plead guilty of supplying the actor the fatal drugs. The 42-year-old will plead guilty to five charges, including one charging her for distributing ketamine resulting to death, the US Department of Justice informed on Monday.
With this, Sangha will become the fifth defendant to be charged in the case, the other four being, Dr Salvador Plasencia, Dr Mark Chavez, Kenneth Iwamasa and Eric Fleming. Iwamasa, who worked as Perry's live-in assistant, reportedly helped the actor procure and inject the ketamine. Fleming procured the ketamine from Sangha and sold it to Perry.
Who is Jasveen Sangha?
Sangha is a dual citizen of the US and the UK. She graduated from Calabasas High in 2001, earned a Bachelor's degree from the University of California, Irvine in 2005, and completed her MBA from Hult Business School in 2010.
Post her education, she landed a job at Merrill Lynch, but it was her illegitimate drug business that actually thrived in the years that followed.
She reportedly ran one of the largest underground drug rackets, and when her house was raided before her arrest in 2024, authorities discovered 80 vials of ketamine, along with thousands of pills of methamphetamine, cocaine and Xanax.
Her biggest clients were some of the biggest names in the country, including actors, celebrities, businessmen and others. After the raids at her multiple residential properties, the authorities had called her Los Angeles home "a drug-selling emporium".
Jasveen Sangha's role in Matthew Perry's death
As per reports, Sangha sold 25 vials of ketamine to Perry just four days before his death. She was arrested in March 2024, and has been in federal custody since August 2024. She is now set to formally plead guilty in the coming weeks.
Sangha will reportedly face up to 65 years in prison, and it could be lessened only if she "accepted her responsibility" in the incident, officials said.
Matthew Perry was found dead in the hot tub of his swanky Los Angeles home in August 2023 at the age of 54. Autopsy reports revealed that he had high levels of ketamine in his system which caused his death.
