Pleads guilty in death of ‘ketamine queen’ Matthew Perry
Jasbeen Sangha, nicknamed the “Ketamine Queen,” pleaded guilty in 2023 to supplying the drug that led to Matthew Perry’s fatal overdose.
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Matthew Perry’s stepmother has explained how the family is suffering “irreparable” pain from the “Friends” actor’s 2023 death.
The day before the sentencing of Jasveen Sangha, the so-called “queen of ketamine,” who pleaded guilty in a U.S. Department of Justice criminal case related to Perry’s death, prosecutors submitted a victim impact statement by Debbie Perry. The application, obtained by USA TODAY, was filed April 7 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
Debbie Perry, who is married to Matthew Perry’s father, John Bennett Perry, wrote: “The pain you have caused to hundreds or even thousands of people is irreparable. There is no joy to be found and no light in the window.” “They’re not coming back. That thought comes to us every day.”
She said she “cannot escape” these feelings and blamed the sangha.
“You caused this,” Debbie Perry said. “You, who were good at business and good enough to make money, chose a path that only hurt people. How sad for you. How can you find joy? Have you ever found joy? How sad for all of us. We will miss him.”
At the end of her poetic letter, Debbie Perry asked the court to impose the maximum prison sentence so that Sangha “cannot harm other families like ours.”
In a sentencing memo filed March 25 and obtained by USA TODAY, Sangha’s attorney wrote that Sangha “accepted responsibility for serious criminal conduct. She does not downplay the seriousness of that conduct or the consequences of the charges in this case.” They called for “the imposition of a prison sentence followed by conditions of appropriate supervised release.”
Matthew Perry, 54, was found unresponsive and face down in the “heated end” of his swimming pool on October 28, according to an autopsy. The Los Angeles Fire Department confirmed to USA TODAY that firefighters responded to Matthew Perry’s Southern California home at 4:07 p.m. and found an “adult male unconscious in a separate hot tub.”
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office later ruled Perry’s death an accident, attributing the cause to “the acute effects of ketamine.” Contributing factors were drowning, coronary artery disease, and the effects of buprenorphine.
Buprenorphine is an “opioid-like drug used to treat opioid addiction and acute and chronic pain,” according to a 29-page autopsy report obtained by USA TODAY.
What happened to the people charged in Matthew Perry’s death?
Sangha was one of five people charged in Matthew Perry’s death. According to her plea agreement signed Aug. 14, she agreed to plead guilty to five charges. three counts of distribution of ketamine; One count of distribution of ketamine causing death or serious bodily injury.
Each defendant entered a guilty plea. Dr. Salvador Plasencia was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison. Dr. Mark Chavez pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to distribute the dissociative anesthetic ketamine and was sentenced to eight months of home confinement. Film producer Eric Fleming and Perry’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa have not yet been sentenced.
Fleming admitted to distributing Sangha’s ketamine that killed Perry, pleading guilty in August 2024 to conspiracy to distribute ketamine and distribution of ketamine resulting in death. Iwamasa agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.
Sangha’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, April 8 in Los Angeles.
