{"id":591032,"date":"2026-04-08T21:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T21:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/591032\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T21:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T21:11:08","slug":"ketamine-queen-gets-15-years-for-selling-drugs-to-matthew-perry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/591032\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Ketamine Queen’ gets 15 years for selling drugs to Matthew Perry"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A federal judge on Wednesday handed down a sentence of 15 years in prison to a woman who pleaded guilty to selling actor Matthew Perry<\/a> the ketamine that killed him in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re going to have to show some epic resilience,\u201d Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett said to Jasveen Sangha<\/a>, echoing the defendant\u2019s words earlier in the hearing about her self-improvement.<\/p>\n

Citing the unique role Sangha admitted to playing in Perry\u2019s death and her broader drug-dealing business, the judge gave the 42-year-old a sentence that will almost certainly be more than all four of her co-defendants combined.<\/p>\n

The hearing Wednesday in a Los Angeles courtroom was in many ways the pinnacle of the 2 1\/2-year investigation and prosecution that followed the overdose death of the 54-year-old actor, whose role as Chandler Bing on NBC\u2019s \u201cFriends\u201d<\/a> in the 1990s and 2000s made him one of the biggest television stars of the era.<\/p>\n

Keith Morrison, Perry\u2019s stepfather and correspondent for NBC\u2019s \u201cDateline,\u201d told the judge that he and Perry\u2019s mother, Suzanne, feel a \u201cdaily, grinding sadness and sorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a spark to that man I have never seen anywhere else,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cHe should have had another act. Two more acts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just before she was sentenced, Sangha<\/a> told the judge she wears her shame \u201clike a jacket.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThese were not mistakes. They were horrible decisions,\u201d Sangha said, which \u201cshattered people\u2019s lives and the lives of their family and friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors secured the exact sentence they asked for after casting Sangha as a \u201cKetamine Queen\u201d who had an elaborate drug operation catering to high-end clients to give herself a jet-setting lifestyle.<\/p>\n

Sangha\u2019s attorneys argued the time she has spent in jail since her August 2024 indictment should be sufficient, pointing to her good behavior behind bars and lack of prior arrests.<\/p>\n

Perry was found dead in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home in October 2023. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine,<\/a> typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death \u2014 and drowning was a secondary cause.<\/p>\n

Mark Geragos, Sangha\u2019s attorney, said \u201cpernicious\u201d addiction was truly responsible for Perry\u2019s death, not his client.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nobody who was going to stop Mr. Perry from doing what he was going to do,\u201d Geragos said. <\/p>\n

In September, Sangha became the last of five co-defendants to plead guilty, admitting to one count of using her home for drug distribution, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.<\/p>\n

Geragos denounced the prosecution\u2019s use of the moniker \u201cKetamine Queen,\u201d blaming it on E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney when the case was filed. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat was not her name, that was his very clever name to draw media attention this case,\u201d Geragos said.<\/p>\n

Perry had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal off-label treatment for depression. But he sought more than the doctor would give him. That at first led him to Dr. Salvador Plasencia<\/a>, who admitted to illegally selling Perry ketamine and was sentenced to 2 1\/2 years in prison. And, days before his death, it led Perry to Sangha, and a $6,000 cash buy that included the lethal dose. <\/p>\n

Another doctor, who admitted to providing Plasencia the ketamine<\/a> he sold to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention. Perry\u2019s assistant and his friend, who admitted acting as the actor\u2019s middlemen, are awaiting sentencing. <\/p>\n

The judge said she was trying to carefully calibrate the sentences for the five defendants. She expressed concern about the balance during the hearing, asking lawyers why Sangha deserved so much more time than Plasencia or Perry\u2019s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who obtained and injected the drugs at Perry\u2019s request and injected them into him. <\/p>\n

Geragos seized on this and said the disparity was outrageous. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe person who supplies the ammunition, they\u2019re more culpable than the person who pulls the trigger?\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n

But before sentencing, Garnett said the size of Sangha\u2019s drug business, the years she spent dealing and her long list of clients clearly made her more culpable. And she said she believed Sangha\u2019s lack of a criminal history was underrepresented. <\/p>\n

The judge also cited Sangha\u2019s continued dealing after learning through a text message from his sister that one of her customers, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, had died in 2019. <\/p>\n

The sister, Kimberly McLaury, spoke in court. <\/p>\n

\u201cHad you stopped selling ketamine when I texted you, we wouldn\u2019t be here today,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Perry\u2019s stepmother Debbie Perry told Sangha she had caused pain for \u201chundreds, maybe thousands\u201d of people. <\/p>\n

The judge commended Sangha for the \u201ccountless\u201d letters of support she got from family and friends touting her decency and loving nature. Many of them were there in court, sitting on the opposite side from Perry\u2019s family. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no joy in this process,\u201d Garnett told the victim\u2019s family members. \u201cMaybe at the end of the day you will feel a sense of justice.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A federal judge on Wednesday handed down a sentence of 15 years in prison…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[2843,49,3335,48,361,225011,13444,37468,225009,75,2841,225010,225012,225013,7738,1522,225008,40182,74592,152012,2845],"class_list":{"0":"post-591032","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ap-top-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-celebrities","13":"tag-cody-mclaury","14":"tag-courts","15":"tag-criminal-punishment","16":"tag-debbie-perry","17":"tag-entertainment","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-keith-morrison","20":"tag-kenneth-iwamasa","21":"tag-kimberly-mclaury","22":"tag-legal-proceedings","23":"tag-los-angeles","24":"tag-mark-geragos","25":"tag-matthew-perry","26":"tag-parties-and-entertaining","27":"tag-sherilyn-peace-garnett","28":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}