The predatory underground medical network that fueled Matthew Perry’s tragic death just faced its harshest legal reckoning yet. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced 42-year-old Jasveen Sangha—the underground dealer widely known as the “Ketamine Queen”—to 15 years in federal prison for her role in the actor’s fatal October 2023 overdose.
The sentencing marks the climax of a sweeping two-year federal crackdown on illicit drug rings targeting high-net-worth Hollywood clients. Sangha, a dual U.S.-U.K. citizen, previously pleaded guilty to five federal drug charges. She admitted to supplying the lethal dose, unloading 25 vials of the anesthetic to Perry’s camp for $6,000 in cash just four days before his death.
Sangha ran a sophisticated, high-volume distribution hub out of her North Hollywood residence to finance a lavish, jet-setting lifestyle. During Wednesday’s hearing, according to court details, Sangha addressed the courtroom directly. She told the judge she wore her shame “like a jacket” and confessed that her “horrible decisions” shattered multiple lives.
Perry was publicly transparent about his lifelong struggle with addiction. Before turning to Sangha’s black market operation, the beloved television star initially received legal, clinical ketamine infusion therapy for depression. The financial and personal fallout of his severe addiction continues to surface, including recent revelations that the Matthew Perry estate was hit with an unpaid tax bill dating back to the year before he died.
U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett heard intensely emotional victim impact statements before handing down the 15-year sentence. Perry’s stepfather, Dateline correspondent Keith Morrison, and his stepmother Debbie Perry pleaded for the maximum penalty. They cited the “irreversible” pain caused by Sangha’s actions. While she faced up to 65 years behind bars, the 15-year term is the longest punishment distributed in the five-person indictment.
The federal probe has systematically dismantled the enablers surrounding the former Friends star. Two medical professionals involved in the supply chain already faced justice. Dr. Salvador Plasencia received 30 months in federal prison. Dr. Mark Chavez was sentenced to eight months of home confinement. Perry’s live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa and middleman Erik Fleming are currently awaiting their own sentencing dates.
Prosecutors successfully argued for a stiff penalty by detailing Sangha’s documented history of callousness. This wasn’t her first fatal transaction. In 2019, she sold ketamine to a 33-year-old man named Cody McLaury. Even after a family member informed her that her supply contributed to McLaury’s fatal overdose, Sangha deliberately kept her trafficking pipeline open. Judge Garnett’s ruling sets a massive new precedent for holding high-end suppliers strictly accountable. By calibrating this sentence against the lesser punishments handed to the doctors, the court is sending a very clear warning to the Los Angeles elite. The justice system is no longer treating celebrity overdoses as isolated tragedies, but as the direct result of predatory, black-market supply chains that will be aggressively prosecuted at the federal level.