The actor Matthew Perry died of a drug overdose last October after he bought 50 vials of ketamine from Jasveen Sangha, according to a criminal indictment. Photo / Michelle Groskopf, The New York Times
One year after Matthew Perry’s death, Jasveen Sangha is in jail awaiting trial on charges that she sold him the ketamine that killed him.
A few weeks after Matthew Perry was discovered floating facedown in a hot pool, the woman who prosecutors say supplied the ketamine that killed the actor was indulging in afternoon tea at a five-star hotel in Japan and taking mirror selfies while modelling a kimono. Several months later, she posted highlights from a trip to Mexico, where she enjoyed caviar at the airport, sitting poolside at the beach and admiring a drink within a coconut.
The woman, Jasveen Sangha, liked to share images of a glamorous life on social media, of herself rubbing elbows with celebrities and travelling around the world to Spain, China and Dubai.
But her home was a midrise building for the aspiring upper class in North Hollywood, an unglamorous space in an unremarkable part of town. It was there, prosecutors say, that Sangha manufactured, stored and distributed illegal drugs for at least five years, including those connected to the deaths of Perry and another man.
When the authorities raided Sangha’s fourth-floor apartment in March, they said they found cocaine, 79 vials of ketamine and 1.3kg of orange pills containing methamphetamine. Prosecutors emphasised in court documents that customers knew her as the “Ketamine Queen”.
“Given the volume of drugs defendant sold, there are likely more victims,” they wrote in court documents.
Sangha was initially arrested in March on drug charges and released on bail, but in August federal prosecutors brought a new indictment accusing her and four other people of playing a role in Perry’s death. A judge revoked her bail, citing concerns that she was a flight risk and a danger to the community, and sent her to jail to await trial.
Two months later, her name still appeared on a buzzer box in North Hollywood. The wood panelling on her apartment door was cracked and mostly missing, exposing a busted lock.
On a recent weekday morning, a cleaner stood on a stool inside the barren unit that prosecutors say had spent years as a “stash house,” busy scrubbing the cabinets.
Perry died October 28, 2023, of the “acute effects of ketamine,” a powerful anaesthetic that has become increasingly popular as a therapy for depression and is also used as a recreational drug. The actor, known for his role as Chandler Bing on the 1990s sitcom Friends, had written openly about his struggles with addiction in a memoir.
Sangha, 41, has pleaded not guilty to charges connected with Perry’s overdose, including distribution of ketamine resulting in death, and is scheduled to stand trial in March; if convicted of all charges, she would face a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
A spokesperson for the US attorney’s office declined to comment. When the charges were announced, Martin Estrada, a US attorney in California, said in a statement, “Drug dealers selling dangerous substances are gambling with other people’s lives over greed.”
In an interview with the Today show that aired Monday, Suzanne Morrison, Perry’s mother, said she was “thrilled” that people including Sangha have been charged. Perry’s stepfather, Keith Morrison, voiced his agreement.
“What I’m hoping, and I think the agencies that got involved in this are hoping, that people who have put themselves in the business of supplying people with the drugs that’ll kill them – that they are now on notice,” Keith Morrison said. “It doesn’t matter what your professional credentials are. You’re going down, baby.”
Mark Geragos, a lawyer whose firm is handling Sangha’s case, declined to comment. But in an interview with NewsNation in August, he questioned how authorities could be sure they knew the origin of the ketamine that killed Perry.
“Just because it’s a tragedy doesn’t mean it’s criminal,” he said.
Sangha graduated from high school in Calabasas, an affluent Los Angeles suburb, in 2001 before earning an undergraduate degree in social sciences from the University of California, Irvine, and a Master of Business Administration from Hult International Business School in London.
On an Instagram account, Sangha advertised herself as a curator of art and events and a jet-setter who routinely hopped between London and Los Angeles. She bolstered that image with photos and videos from pools, dance parties and fancy dinners around the world, appearing with Charlie Sheen, DJ Khaled and Perla Hudson, the ex-wife of guitarist Slash. (Representatives for Sheen and DJ Khaled did not respond to a request for comment. Attempts to reach Hudson were unsuccessful.)
When Sangha turned 40 last year, she celebrated in a feathery, pale pink dress and a matching cowboy hat, according to videos she posted online. At the party in the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang lounge inside a boutique hotel in Los Angeles, hot pink lights radiated out from a disco ball rotating overhead. The music made the comfy seats vibrate while silver buckets awaited ice and champagne.
Prosecutors say it is unclear how Sangha financed her lifestyle – they say she drove a Range Rover and BMW at various times – and that it appears she had been unemployed since at least 2019. Before that, she had for a time been involved with Stiletto Nail Bar in Studio City, an upscale neighbourhood in the San Fernando Valley, according to business records.
When Sangha was initially arrested in March on a charge of drug dealing, her mother, Nilem Sangha, secured the US$100,000 ($167,000) bond for her release, according to court records.
Nilem Sangha did not respond to requests for comment, and several attempts to reach other members of Jasveen Sangha’s family by phone and in person were unsuccessful. A woman who answered a number listed in court records for Sangha declined to comment.
Much remains unknown about Sangha beyond what she has presented publicly online. In her senior portrait inside the Calabasas High School yearbook, she wears an inscrutable expression not unlike the Mona Lisa. The accompanying quotation reads, “It isn’t what they say about you, it’s what they whisper.”
Perry was not the only person who died after buying ketamine from Sangha, prosecutors allege in the indictment. The court documents say Cody McLaury died of an overdose shortly after Sangha sold him ketamine in August 2019.
Despite knowledge of McLaury’s death, prosecutors say, Sangha continued to distribute illegal drugs from her apartment for the next five years.
Sangha heard of Perry’s interest in ketamine through an acquaintance who was in touch with the actor’s personal assistant and offered to send a sample, court documents say. She sought to project an air of exclusivity, calling her supply “amazing” and telling her acquaintance, Erik Fleming, “Take one and try it and I have more if he likes”.
Two days after the offer, prosecutors say, Sangha sent the actor a ketamine sample in an unlabelled glass vial with a blue cap. The Government says Fleming and Perry’s assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, acted as intermediaries. The next day, Iwamasa bought 25 vials on Perry’s behalf, according to the indictment; when he bought 25 more vials two weeks later, Sangha threw in some ketamine lollipops as well.
One of those 50 vials contained the ketamine that killed Perry, prosecutors say.
Fleming and Iwamasa have both pleaded guilty to criminal charges. After Sangha learned of the actor’s death through news reports, she quickly sought to destroy evidence of her involvement, prosecutors said in court documents. “Delete all our messages,” she told Fleming.
That level of caution appeared to dissipate over the following months, prosecutors say.
In July, not long before she was arrested in connection with Perry’s death, Sangha posted a photo on social media of a bracelet with several mushroom charms and the message, “Pulling out old raver candy #ravetothegrave”.
Prosecutors later wrote in a court filing that the post suggested Sangha would “persist in her drug lifestyle until death,” and that the “#ravetothegrave” hashtag was “a callous choice of words, considering that her actions have sent two victims to theirs”.
This article originally appeared in the New York Times.
Written by: Matt Stevens
Photographs by: Morgan Lieberman and Michelle Groskopf
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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