'Ketamine Queen' Jasveen Sangha jailed for 15 years over death of Matthew Perry

A woman known as the "Ketamine Queen", who supplied the fatal dose of the drug that killed actor Matthew Perry, has been sentenced to 15 years in jail.

Jasveen Sangha initially denied the charges but agreed to change her plea in a signed statement last year, just a few weeks before she had been due to stand trial.

In a victim impact statement submitted ahead of the sentencing hearing, Perry's stepmother Debbie described Sangha as "heartless" and called for the judge to give her the maximum jail time.

Image: Matthew Perry's mother Suzanne Morrison and her husband Keith Morrison were in court for today's hearing. Pic: AP/ Damian Dovarganes

The Friends star and Emmy-nominated actor died in October 2023, aged 54. He had struggled with addiction for years, but released a memoir a year before his death during a period of being clean.

He had been using ketamine through his regular doctor as a legal, but off-label, treatment for depression, but in the weeks before his death had also started to seek more of the drug illegally.

His dependence on the drug was "spiralling out of control" in his final months, prosecutors said.

Five people, including doctors and the actor's personal assistant, have pleaded guilty to various charges connected with his death. Sangha, who has dual British-American nationality, is the third person to be sentenced.

In December last year, Salvador Plasencia, a doctor, was jailed for two-and-a-half years for illegally supplying ketamine to Perry in the weeks before his death.

Another doctor, Mark Chavez, was sentenced to eight months home confinement after admitting selling ketamine to Plasencia.

Sangha, who has been in custody since her arrest in August 2024, pleaded guilty in September to five federal charges, including distributing ketamine resulting in death.

She is the only defendant whose plea deal included an acknowledgment of causing Perry's death.

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Image: Salvador Plasencia, a doctor who pleaded guilty to supplying ketamine to Matthew Perry. File pic: Reuters/ Mike Blake

She also admitted to selling drugs to another man, Cody McLaury, 33, who had no connection to Perry, before his overdose death in 2019.

Prosecutors wrote in March that after Sangha found out she had sold the drugs that caused Perry's death, "she didn't care and kept selling".

Her conduct showed 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".

But before sentencing, Sangha told the judge she wears her shame "like a jacket", admitting her actions "were not mistakes. They were horrible decisions" which "shattered people's lives and the lives of their family and friends".

Keith Morrison, Perry's stepfather, said the judge delivered "a highly reasoned sentence", NBC, Sky's US partner, reported.

He added: "We miss Matthew dreadfully, of course, and I feel badly for the perpetrator here as well. Nobody won today."

Perry's role as Chandler Bing on NBC's Friends in the 1990s and 2000s made him one of the biggest television stars of the era.

The actor was found dead in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home. He was lying face down in the water, NBC said.

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He died from an accidental overdose of ketamine, the Los Angeles County medical examiner's office said.

Sangha sold him 25 vials of ketamine, including the fatal dose, for $6,000 (£4,482) in cash four days before his death, prosecutors said.