{"id":189744,"date":"2026-04-08T16:46:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T16:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189744\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T16:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T16:46:36","slug":"matthew-perry-death-ketamine-queen-jasveen-sangha-to-be-sentenced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/189744\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Perry death: ‘Ketamine Queen’ Jasveen Sangha to be sentenced"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A woman who admitted to selling Matthew Perry<\/a> the ketamine that killed him is set to be sentenced Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Jasveen Sangha<\/a> will be the third defendant sentenced of the five people who have pleaded guilty<\/a> in connection with the 2023 overdose of the 54-year-old actor. His role as Chandler Bing on NBC\u2019s \u201cFriends\u201d<\/a> in the 1990s and 2000s made him one of the biggest television stars of his era.<\/p>\n

Sangha<\/a> is the only one whose plea deal included an acknowledgment of causing Perry\u2019s death, and is likely to get the stiffest sentence of the group by far.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors are asking a federal judge in Los Angeles to sentence the 42-year-old Sangha to 15 years in prison. They cast her in court filings 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 said in their sentencing filing that the time she has spent in jail since her August 2024 indictment should be sufficient, and prosecutors\u2019 math on federal sentencing guidelines is \u201cfactually wrong.\u201d They point to her lack of a previous criminal record and exemplary behavior as an inmate, as well as the unlikelihood she would return to a life of drug dealing.<\/p>\n

Members of Perry\u2019s family are expected to speak in court before the sentencing.<\/p>\n

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

Perry, who had lifelong struggles with addiction, had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal off-label treatment for depression. But he wanted 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 after prosecutors asked for three years. And it later led Perry to Sangha, who sold him 25 vials of ketamine, including the fatal dose, for $6,000 in cash four days before his death, prosecutors said.<\/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

U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett has said she is seeking to calibrate how she sentences each of the five defendants to make sense as a whole.<\/p>\n

In September, shortly before a scheduled trial, Sangha pleaded guilty 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. She also admitted to selling drugs to another man, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, who had no connection to Perry, before his overdose death in 2019.<\/p>\n

The prosecution said that despite Sangha\u2019s plea, she continued drug dealing, showing her lack of remorse.<\/p>\n

Their sentencing filing says that in 2020, when she learned that the ketamine she sold McLaury contributed to his death, \u201cShe didn\u2019t care and kept selling.\u201d In 2023, the filing says that when she learned she sold Perry the drugs that caused his death, \u201cHer reaction was the same: she didn\u2019t care and kept selling.\u201d<\/p>\n

A dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, Sangha moved from England to the U.S. at age 3, and when she was around age 10, her family settled in Southern California. <\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t know her father but has said her grandfather and stepfather were essential male influences in her life. Both recently died and it has had a \u201cprofound effect\u201d on her, the defense said. <\/p>\n

She is very close to her mother and grandmother, who would provide her with stability if she were released, her lawyers said.<\/p>\n

Sangha has a bachelor\u2019s degree from the University of California, Irvine, and a master\u2019s degree from Hult International Business School in England. <\/p>\n

The defense used her biography to show she\u2019s an educated and otherwise upstanding citizen who made an aberrant mistake when she fell into selling drugs.<\/p>\n

The prosecution said her life circumstances show she didn\u2019t act out of desperation, and that she freely chose to deal drugs to finance the posh lifestyle she wanted.<\/p>\n

Sangha\u2019s lawyers said she has been a model inmate in jail, maintaining sobriety and organizing and leading Narcotics Anonymous meetings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 A woman who admitted to selling Matthew Perry the ketamine that killed him is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":189745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2571,2136,76094,419,9826,16325,417,415,1016,32150,9,24,63,4719,122,124,123,76095,421],"class_list":{"0":"post-189744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-arts-and-entertainment","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-cody-mclaury","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-criminal-punishment","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-general-news","15":"tag-indictments","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-matthew-perry","18":"tag-new-york","19":"tag-new-york-city","20":"tag-nyc","21":"tag-prisons","22":"tag-queens","23":"tag-queens-headlines","24":"tag-queens-news","25":"tag-sherilyn-peace-garnett","26":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}