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Jasveen Sangha, the Los Angeles drug dealer prosecutors branded the “Ketamine Queen,” was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in federal prison for supplying the ketamine tied to the 2023 death of actor Matthew Perry.
U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Garnett imposed the sentence in federal court in Los Angeles after Sangha pleaded guilty to five felony counts, including distribution of ketamine resulting in death. The sentence matched the punishment sought by federal prosecutors.
The ruling closes one of the most closely watched chapters in the criminal fallout from Perry’s death, a case that peeled back the layers of a drug pipeline serving a wealthy, high-profile client who had long struggled with addiction.
Perry, best known for playing Chandler Bing on Friends, was found dead at his home on October 28, 2023. Authorities later concluded that ketamine was the primary cause of death, with drowning among the contributing factors described in reporting on the case.
A Supply Chain Built on Access and Profit
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Sangha operated a drug-involved premises in North Hollywood and sold ketamine through intermediary Erik Fleming, who then passed it along to Perry through Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa.
Federal prosecutors argued that Sangha was not a peripheral figure but a central supplier in a distribution chain driven by money, access, and indifference to risk.
A simple way to frame it is to compare a rough-cut bracket with a fuel-system component. A rough-cut bracket may only need to “fit well enough.”
A fuel-system component may need bores, faces, and threaded features to line up almost perfectly so pressure seals, flow rates, and assembly performance stay consistent. Precision machining exists for jobs where “close enough” is expensive, risky, or unusable.
That detail mattered in court because it placed Sangha at the intersection of celebrity vulnerability and black-market opportunism. Prosecutors said she admitted selling dozens of vials connected to the case and described her operation as one aimed at high-end clients.
The Justice Department said she pleaded guilty not only to the Perry-related counts, but also to maintaining a premises for drug distribution and additional ketamine sales.
Why the Judge Declined Leniency
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Sangha’s lawyers asked for a far lighter sentence, pointing to her lack of prior criminal convictions, her sobriety while in custody, and her efforts at rehabilitation. But prosecutors pressed for 15 years, arguing that her conduct went far beyond a single tragic transaction.
Reuters reported that the judge was persuaded in part by evidence that Sangha continued dealing drugs even after Perry’s death, a fact that cut sharply against the defense claim that she had changed course.
The court also weighed another grim fact. Reuters and AP both reported that Sangha admitted her role in a separate 2019 ketamine sale that led to another fatal overdose.
That earlier death gave the case a darker profile. It suggested a dealer who had already seen where her business could end and carried on anyway.
The Broader Perry Prosecution
Sangha was one of five defendants charged in the broader investigation into Perry’s death. Federal authorities have also secured guilty pleas from doctors Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez, along with Fleming and Iwamasa.
Reuters reported that Plasencia received 2½ years in prison and Chavez was sentenced to eight months of home confinement, while other parts of the case were still moving through the sentencing process as of April 8.
For Perry’s family, the sentence does not resolve the loss. But it does mark a rare moment of accountability in a case that exposed how addiction, celebrity, and private access to controlled drugs can converge behind closed doors.
The government’s message was plain: what happened to Perry was not only a personal tragedy, but a criminal enterprise with fatal consequences.
