Jasveen Sangha, said to be known as the Ketamine Queen in Hollywood, is one of five people charged in connection with the death of Matthew Perry. Photo / Instagram @jasveen_s
Jasveen Sangha, said to be known as the Ketamine Queen in Hollywood, is one of five people charged in connection with the death of Matthew Perry. Photo / Instagram @jasveen_s
Jasveen Sangha, who denies conspiring to supply the late Friends star with ketamine, could lift the lid on abuse of narcotics by Hollywood’s rich and famous.
Sangha is accused of operating a “stash house” in North Hollywood, and supplying both ketamine and methamphetamine to wealthy clients in Los Angeles.
Her arrest raises the possibility she will agree to a plea deal in exchange for exposing the underworld of drug use among celebrities and showbusiness executives.
Perry was found dead in his hot tub on October 28. A coroner ruled he had levels of ketamine equivalent to the quantity that would be used to anaesthetise a hospital patient.
Matthew Perry had spoken openly about his struggles with addiction. Photo / Getty Images
Prosecutors said Sangha was one of five individuals who conspired to provide Perry with ketamine in the weeks leading up to his death, by selling vials of the drug to his assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa.
Iwamasa, who was also charged after a joint investigation between the Los Angeles police department and several United States federal agencies, is accused of injecting his boss with ketamine more than 20 times in the four days before he died.
Sangha has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and to separate charges in a federal drugs case in March, in which she was accused of acting as a “a large-volume drug dealer”.
Prosecutors are reportedly hoping she will expose drug-dealing in LA in exchange for a lesser sentence.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told Page Six: “She may name anyone connected to her, anyone who supplied to her or she supplied to”.
“Hollywood celebrities should be quaking in their boots … anyone who has anything to do with Jasveen Sangha should be really concerned right now.”
Illegal drugs that police said were seized from Jasveen Sangha's home in March, in a raid unconnected to the Matthew Perry case. Photo / US District Court
The other people charged include two medical doctors, Salvador Plasencia and Mark Chavez, who are accused of working together to procure ketamine illegally and supply it to Perry in September and October last year.
Chavez has already entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors over the charges, and pleaded guilty.
Their alleged supply chain, using legitimate wholesalers, was separate to Sangha’s “stash house” in Hollywood, prosecutors said.
A fifth man, Erik Fleming, is accused of acting as a go-between for Perry’s assistant and Sangha.
Fleming is a former entertainment industry worker who directed Scarlett Johansson in a 1999 children’s film.
