‘Ketamine Queen’ pleads guilty to supplying drug that killed Matthew Perry

A woman branded the “Ketamine Queen” pleaded guilty on Wednesday to selling Friends star Matthew Perry the drug that killed him.

Jasveen Sangha pleaded guilty to five federal charges, including providing the ketamine that led to Perry’s death.

Her trial had been planned to start later this month. She is the fifth and final defendant charged in Perry’s overdose death to admit guilt.

Perry’s mother, Suzanne Perry, and his stepfather, Dateline reporter Keith Morrison, sat in the audience. It was their first time attending court proceedings since the announcement of the indictments one year ago.

Wearing tan jail clothing, Sangha stood in court on Wednesday next to her lawyer, Mark Geragos, as she repeated “guilty” five times as US district court judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett asked for her pleas.

Before that she answered “yes, your honour” to dozens of procedural questions, hedging slightly when the judge asked if she knew the drugs she was giving to co-defendant and middleman Erik Fleming were going to Perry.

“There was no way I could tell 100%,” she said. She later added, to a similar question on vials of ketamine she gave to Fleming, that “I didn’t know if all of them or some of them” were bound for Perry. The comments did not affect her plea agreement.

Prosecutors had cast Sangha, a 42-year-old dual citizen of the US and the UK, as a prolific drug dealer who was known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen”, using the term often in press releases and court documents.

Making good on a deal she signed on August 18, Sangha pleaded 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.

“She feels horrible about all of this. Nobody wants to be in the chain of causation for lack of a better term,” Mr Geragos said outside the federal court in Los Angeles. “She feels horrible and she’s felt horrible since day one.”

Sangha admitted to selling drugs directly to 33-year-old Cody McLaury, who died from an overdose in 2019. Mr McLaury had no connection to Perry.

Prosecutors agreed to drop three other counts related to the distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of methamphetamine that was unrelated to the Perry case.

Mr Geragos, whose other clients have included Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and the Menendez brothers, told the judge that the deal was reached “after a robust back-and-forth with the government”.

The final plea deal came a year after federal prosecutors announced that five people had been charged in Perry’s October 28 2023 death after a sweeping investigation.

A judge will schedule sentencing for Sangha. She could get up to 65 years in prison.

The judge is not bound to follow any terms of the plea agreement, but prosecutors said in the document that they will ask for less than the maximum. None of the co-defendants has been sentenced yet.

Sangha and Dr Salvador Plasencia, who pleaded guilty in July, had been the primary targets of the investigation.

Three other defendants: Dr Mark Chavez, Kenneth Iwamasa; and Erik Fleming; pleaded guilty in exchange for their co-operation, which included statements implicating Sangha and Plasencia.

Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home by Iwamasa, his assistant.

The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anaesthetic, was the primary cause of death.