The woman who sold ketamine to Friends star Matthew Perry before his death was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Wednesday.
Dubbed the ‘Ketamine Queen’, 42-year-old Jasveen Sangha pled guilty to five charges last September, including providing the ketamine that led to Perry’s death in 2023.
The American-British dual-national became the third defendant sentenced of the five people who have pleaded guilty in connection with the overdose of the 54-year-old actor.
Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home in October 2023 after battling addiction for years, with the medial examiner ruling that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death.
His role as Chandler Bing on NBC’s Friends in the 1990s and 2000s made him one of the biggest television stars of the era.
Keith Morrison, Perry’s stepfather told the judge that he and Perry’s mother, Suzanne, feel a “daily, grinding sadness and sorrow”.
Prosecutors said the ‘Ketamine Queen’ had an elaborate drug operation catering to high-end clients to fund her jet-setting lifestyle, despite a life of privilege.
Perry had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal off-label treatment for depression, but sought more.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia, admitted to illegally selling Perry ketamine and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.
Following this, Sangha sold Perry 25 vials of ketamine, including the fatal dose, for $6,000 in cash four days before his death, prosecutors said.
Another doctor, who admitted to providing Plasencia the ketamine he sold to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention.
Perry’s assistant and his friend, who admitted acting as the actor’s middlemen, are awaiting sentencing.
The judge said she is calibrating how to sentence each of the five defendants to make sense as a whole.
Sangha is the only defendant whose plea deal included an acknowledgment of causing Perry’s death, meaning her 15-year prison term is likely to be longer than all the other defendants combined.
Sangha pleaded guilty in September 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.
The prosecution said that despite Sangha’s plea, she continued drug dealing, showing her lack of remorse.
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
