A Southern California woman known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen” has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges in connection with the overdose death of “Friends” actor Matthew Perry.
Jasveen Sangha, 42, agreed to plead guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury. The North Hollywood woman has been in federal custody since 2024 and is expected to formally enter the guilty plea in the coming weeks, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Monday.
A sentencing hearing is expected in the coming months.
Sangha appeared headed for trial next month after she was the lone remaining defendant in the October 2023 death of Perry that had not reached a plea agreement with prosecutors.
“She’s taking responsibility for her actions,” attorney Mark Geragos said of the plea agreement.
Perry, found dead at age 54 at his home on Oct. 28, 2023, had been getting ketamine from his regular doctor for treatment of depression, an increasingly common off-label use for the surgical anesthetic. Prosecutors said when that doctor refused to provide Perry with as much of the drug as he wanted, he sought more from Sangha and others.
An assistant and friend of Perry’s said in their plea agreements that they served as middlemen to buy large amounts of ketamine from Sangha for Perry. The purchases include 25 vials for $6,000 days before his death, prosecutors said.
Jasveen Sangha is accused of distributing ketamine to Perry during the final weeks of the actor’s life. The I-Team’s Eric Leonard reports for the NBC4 News at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024.
On the day of Perry’s death, Perry was injected with at least three shots of ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic drug that has some hallucinogenic effects, provided by Sangha, according to prosecutors.
“After learning from news reports of Perry’s death, Sangha called Fleming on Signal to discuss how to distance themselves from it,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement announcing the plea agreement. “That day, Sangha updated the settings on the Signal apps to automatically delete her messages with Fleming. She further instructed Fleming to ‘Delete all our messages.'”
In the plea agreement, Sangha also admitted to selling ketamine in August 2019 to a man who died hours later from a drug overdose, prosecutors said. Her North Hollywood residence was used to store, package and distribute narcotics, including ketamine and methamphetamine, since at least June 2019, according to the plea agreement.
Four other people were charged in connection with Perry’s death, including Salvador Plasencia, of Santa Monica. He pleaded guilty July 23 to four counts of ketamine distribution. His sentence is set for Dec. 3.
