Jasveen Sangha, the San Fernando Valley drug dealer dubbed the “Ketamine Queen,” was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years behind bars for supplying the fatal dose of the powerful anesthetic ketamine that caused the October 2023 overdose death of “Friends” actor Matthew Perry.
The North Hollywood woman pleaded guilty last year to maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.
U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett granted the prosecution’s recommendation of 180 months in federal prison followed by three years of federal supervision. The defense had unsuccessfully argued for a sentence of the two years Sangha has already served in custody.
Sangha, 42 — whose customers referred to her as the “Ketamine Queen,” prosecutors say — was the last of the five defendants, including two then-licensed physicians, to plead guilty in the case. Two defendants are awaiting sentencing.
Garnett said Sangha knew the drugs she sold for five years out of her home could kill, “but you did it anyway.”
Sangha admitted selling four vials of ketamine to another man, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, in August 2019, four years before Perry died. McLaury, an aspiring personal trainer, died from an overdose hours after acquiring the drugs. Sangha was not charged with causing McLaury’s death.
Sangha also acknowledged possessing with intent to distribute various drugs at her apartment. In March 2023, seven months prior to Perry’s death, law enforcement raided the residence and found quantities of methamphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy and counterfeit Xanax, papers show. She further admitted possessing a gold money counting machine, a scale, a hidden camera detector, drug packaging materials and $5,723 in cash.
Sangha told prosecutors she had been using her North Hollywood home to store, package and distribute narcotics, including ketamine and methamphetamine, since at least June 2019.
“To cultivate her business, defendant marketed herself as an exclusive dealer who catered to high-profile Hollywood clientele,” prosecutors wrote in sentencing papers. “As she told one customer in 2020, `I’m really select with people,’ and `it’s a very VIP circle of celebs.”’
NBC’s “Dateline” correspondent Keith Morrison, Perry’s stepfather, described the late actor and author for the downtown Los Angeles courtroom in a victim impact statement.
Morrison said Perry was “generous and kind and annoying” at times, but frequently “the old addiction came back.” Morrison said he has been left with “a grinding sadness” since the death.
Addressing Sangha, Morrison said, “You’re a drug dealer. There are a lot of drug dealers out there. … The fact is, you supplied an addict.”
The defendant appeared to weep and put her head in her hands. But in her own statement to the court, mostly about herself and her efforts at sobriety and spirituality while in custody, Sangha offered no apology.
Outside court following the hearing, Sangha’s attorney, Mark Geragos, called the 15-year sentence “absurd.”
“If this is what the criminal justice system or the theory of crime and punishment is, that the dealer should get five times as much as the person who injects the drug, who is there to take care of somebody, maybe I’ve been practicing too long,” Geragos said.
Perry, who had long struggled with addiction and wrote about it in a memoir, obtained the powerful surgical anesthetic from at least two sources.
Beginning in mid-October 2023, the actor’s live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, began obtaining ketamine for Perry from the assistant’s friend, Erik Fleming — who was getting it from Sangha, according to court papers.
After discussing prices with Iwamasa, Fleming coordinated the sales with Sangha, and brought cash from Iwamasa to Sangha’s “stash house” to buy 50 vials of the drug, documents show.
On Oct. 28, 2023, Iwamasa injected Perry with at least three shots of Sangha’s ketamine, causing Perry’s death, authorities said.
When she pleaded guilty last year, Sangha admitted knowing that the ketamine vials she sold to Fleming were ultimately going to Perry.
Ketamine also came to Perry via then-physician Salvador Plasencia, a Santa Monica doctor who owned and operated a Calabasas-based urgent-care clinic.
In late September 2023, Plasencia learned that Perry was interested in obtaining the anesthetic, which is also used as a therapy for depression and as a so-called party drug known in some circles as “Special K,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Plasencia contacted fellow doctor Mark Chavez — then a licensed San Diego physician who operated a ketamine clinic — to obtain the drug to sell to the actor. In text messages to Chavez, Plasencia discussed how much to charge Perry for the ketamine, stating, “I wonder how much this moron will pay,” records show.
Prosecutors said Plasencia illegally distributed ketamine to Perry and Iwamasa on at least seven occasions and taught the personal assistant how to inject Perry with the drug. Plasencia knew that Iwamasa had never received medical training and knew little, if anything, about administering or treating patients with controlled substances, court papers state.
Prosecutors said Perry was paying $2,000 per vial of ketamine, while his dealers were paying $12 for each vial.
Perry detailed his years-long struggle with addiction in the 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.” The “Friends” star, who played the character Chandler Bing in the series from 1994 to 2004, says he went through detox dozens of times.
The actor was found dead Oct. 28, 2023, in a hot tub behind his Pacific Palisades home of a fatal ketamine overdose. He was 54. The five defendants were charged in an 18-count indictment in August 2024 in connection with his death.
Sangha’s actions “show a cold callousness and disregard for life. She chose profits over people, and her actions have caused immense pain to the victims’ families and loved ones,” prosecutors wrote.
Plasencia, 44, also known as “Dr. P,” pleaded guilty in July 2025 to four counts of distribution of ketamine. He was sentenced in December to two years, six months behind bars for illegally supplying the anesthetic drug.
Chavez, 55, pleaded guilty in October 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine. The second of two former doctors convicted in Perry’s death, Chavez was sentenced to eight months of home confinement and ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.
The two remaining defendants are awaiting sentencing.
Fleming, 55, of Hawthorne, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 29, at which time he will face up to 25 years in federal prison.
Iwamasa, 60, of Toluca Lake, pleaded guilty in August 2024 to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine causing death. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 22, at which time he will face up to 15 years in federal prison. He is attempting to have his sentencing moved to June.