‘Ketamine Queen’ Sentenced to 15 Years

The Los Angeles drug dealer dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday for supplying the powerful dissociative anesthetic that killed actor Matthew Perry in his backyard jacuzzi two and a half years ago.

Jasveen Sangha, 42, trembled with tears in her eyes as she learned her fate while seated in a federal courtroom in downtown Los Angeles. The judge agreed with prosecutors that she deserved a sentence one year longer than the 14 years recommended by federal probation officials.

“I do find you were probably one of the most culpable in the series of defendants before this court,” U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett said from the bench. “This is not a reflection of you being a bad person [but] engaging in illegal conduct. … You’re going to have to show some epic resilience.”

Minutes earlier, defense lawyer Mark Geragos asked for a much more lenient sentence of time served, saying it wasn’t fair to cast his client as the worst offender when her group of co-defendants includes two doctors and Perry’s former live-in assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who gave Perry the fatal dose. Geragos noted Sangha was the only one held in custody since the criminal case was unsealed in August 2024.

“There was nobody who was going to stop Mr. Perry from doing what he was going to do. Once (he was) in the throes of addiction, that’s it,” Geragos argued. “In [determining] culpability, how in the world do you say the drug dealer is more culpable than the person who’s the loyal assistant injecting the drug into the addict, letting them drown in the hot tub? … The person who supplies the ammunition, they’re more culpable than the person who pulls the trigger? Logically, it doesn’t make any sense.”

Keith Morrison, Perry’s stepfather, delivered a victim impact statement describing the sitcom star as a “funny and brilliant person” who carried “a lot of ghosts.” He said Perry was candid about the pain of his addiction and had returned from the brink multiple times, going on to write an acclaimed play he performed in London’s West End and to publish a best-selling memoir about his decades-long struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse.

“It’s a daily, grinding sadness and sorrow that we all feel. The loss isn’t just to us, it’s to everybody,” he said. “There was a spark to that man I have never seen anywhere else. He was one of a kind.”

Morrison then addressed Sangha directly. “I don’t hate you,” he said, turning toward Sangha, who was wearing a beige jail jumpsuit with ankle shackles. “Sometimes Matthew would think of [dealers] as his best friend, sometimes as his worst enemy. But the fact is, you supplied an addict.”

After the hearing, Morrison said he believed Sangha heard his message. “She was visibly emotional about it,” he said outside the courthouse. “You’d have to have a heart of stone to wake up every morning and make a business out of feeding off the addictions of vulnerable people who are desperate for drugs, and then, when you’re forced to confront what you’ve done, if you don’t feel some sense of shame or sorrow, you’re not even human. And she is clearly human. She is now facing her sentence. I think she’ll do fine in prison.”

Cody McLaury’s sister, Kimberly, also gave a victim impact statement, recalling how she gained access to her brother’s phone after his death, reviewed his communications with Sangha, and sent a message that read: “The ketamine you sold my brother killed him. It’s listed as the cause of death.” Speaking from the podium on Wednesday, she added, “Had you stopped selling ketamine when I texted you, none of us would be here today.”

In her own address to the court, Sangha said she had learned from her “poor decisions” and wanted to make amends. “I shattered people’s lives,” she said. “I wear my shame like a jacket.”

In addition to her 15-year prison sentence, Sangha also must serve three years of supervised release and is barred from using encrypted messaging applications. She is also required to submit to drug testing, mental health treatment, and any requested searches of her personal electronic devices. The judge declined to allow her to leave custody for a medical procedure and then self-surrender.

Sangha pleaded guilty to five federal criminal charges last September, admitting she supplied a large quantity of ketamine to Perry, including the fatal dose, and that she sold four vials of the drug to another man, Cody McLaury, in August 2019. McLaury died hours later from a mixed drug overdose with acute ketamine toxicity.

Perry, best known for his role as Chandler Bing on Friends, died on Oct. 28, 2023, from the acute effects of ketamine, his autopsy determined. He was 54.

According to her plea agreement, Sangha conspired with a middleman, Erik Fleming, 55, to sell ketamine to Perry in October 2023. She admitted supplying 51 vials that were delivered to Iwamasa, who gave Perry at least three intramuscular injections on the day he died.

After learning about Perry’s fatal overdose, Sangha called Fleming on Signal and updated the settings on her encrypted messaging apps to automatically wipe their messages. She also instructed Fleming to “delete all our messages,” forensic evidence revealed. On Wednesday, Geragos said she

Fleming pleaded guilty on Aug. 8, 2024, to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distributing ketamine resulting in death. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 29. Iwamasa, who was the first to reach a plea agreement with prosecutors, pleaded guilty on Aug. 7, 2024, to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine resulting in death. He admitted that he repeatedly injected Perry despite having no medical training. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 22.

The sprawling criminal case also nabbed two medical doctors, who pleaded guilty to selling large quantities of liquid ketamine to Perry in the weeks before he started buying from Sangha. Dr. Salvador Plasencia was sentenced to 30 months in prison last December, while Dr. Mark Chavez was given eight months of home detention and three years of supervised release.

Last month, Slash’s ex-wife Perla Hudson wrote a letter to the court, defending Sangha as a “selfless” person who deserved mercy. She said their friendship dated back to 2012, and Sangha frequently attended her son’s birthday parties and other family events. “Over the years she has become like a younger sister to me and a beloved ‘fairy godmother’ to my sons,” Hudson wrote in her letter to the court. “When I went through my divorce — one of the most difficult times of my life — Jasveen was a constant and loyal friend.”

When she pleaded guilty last year, Sangha admitted she packaged her liquid ketamine in unmarked glass vials that did not indicate its strength. Before her sentencing, Sangha’s lawyers contested the quantity of drugs seized from her apartment. They argued that investigators tested only 27 pills out of more than three pounds of suspected methamphetamine.

“The court should not attribute the full seizure weight to methamphetamine without evidence showing that the sample reliably supports that conclusion,” her lawyer, Alexandra Kazarian, wrote in a sentencing memo. She said the record didn’t explain how the 27 pills were selected or whether the larger batch was uniform, undermining the “extrapolation” used to calculate Sangha’s sentencing range.

Kazarian and Geragos also challenged the fairness of adding an enhancement to Sangha’s charges for running a drug-involved premises when she already pleaded guilty to operating a stash house. While acknowledging that investigators found drugs, cash, packaging materials, a scale, and transactions tied to Sangha’s North Hollywood apartment, they argued prosecutors had not proven that drug distribution was a primary use of the residence. The judge overruled the objection on Wednesday, noting that Sangha installed a lockbox outside where she would leave drugs for customers.

“Defendant’s sentencing position tries to rewrite history to paint defendant — not those who died ingesting her drugs — as the victim,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ian Yanniello and Haoxiaohan Cai wrote to the court. “But defendant is not a victim. She repeatedly sold dangerous drugs in high volume; she ran a stash house and directed others to help sell her drugs; she obstructed justice to conceal her actions; and she was fully aware that her drug dealing contributed to at least two deaths — yet kept selling the drugs to others.”

Prosecutors said their decision to test a sample of the thousands of “identical orange counterfeit” pills recovered from her apartment in March 2024 followed standard nationwide practice. They called it “meritless” to suggest they were required to test each of the 3,792 pills to support their conclusion that all contained methamphetamine. The judge agreed.

Prosecutors also argued that Sangha showed a striking lack of remorse during a recorded jail call on Christmas Day 2024. After an unidentified caller said, “We’re gonna sell those book rights,” Sangha responded, “Oh I know, the plan is in, the fucking trademark is going down,” according to a recent filing. Yanniello argued on Wednesday that “without a doubt, Ms. Sangha is the most culpable” in the case, adding, “She chose herself and profit.”