'Ketamine Queen' gets 15 years in prison for selling Matthew Perry the
drugs that killed him
[April 09, 2026]
By ANDREW DALTON
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday handed down a sentence
of 15 years in prison to a woman who pleaded guilty to selling actor
Matthew Perry the ketamine that killed him in 2023.
“You’re going to have to show some epic resilience,” Judge Sherilyn
Peace Garnett said to Jasveen Sangha, echoing the defendant's words
earlier in the hearing about her self-improvement.
Citing the unique role Sangha admitted to playing in Perry’s death and
her broader drug-dealing business, the judge gave the 42-year-old a
sentence that will almost certainly be more than all four of her
co-defendants combined.
The hearing Wednesday in a Los Angeles courtroom was in many ways the
pinnacle of the 2 1/2-year investigation and prosecution that followed
the overdose death of the 54-year-old actor, whose role as Chandler Bing
on NBC’s “Friends” in the 1990s and 2000s made him one of the biggest
television stars of the era.
Keith Morrison, Perry’s stepfather and correspondent for NBC’s
“Dateline,” told the judge that he and Perry’s mother, Suzanne, feel a
“daily, grinding sadness and sorrow.”
“There was a spark to that man I have never seen anywhere else,”
Morrison said. “He should have had another act. Two more acts.”
Just before she was sentenced, Sangha told the judge she wears her shame
“like a jacket.”
“These were not mistakes. They were horrible decisions,” Sangha said,
which “shattered people’s lives and the lives of their family and
friends.”
Prosecutors secured the exact sentence they asked for after casting
Sangha as a “Ketamine Queen” who had an elaborate drug operation
catering to high-end clients to give herself a jet-setting lifestyle.
Sangha’s attorneys argued the time she has spent in jail since her
August 2024 indictment should be sufficient, pointing to her good
behavior behind bars and lack of prior arrests.
Perry was found dead in the hot tub at his Los Angeles home in October
2023. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a
surgical anesthetic, was the primary cause of death — and drowning was a
secondary cause.
Mark Geragos, Sangha’s attorney, said “pernicious” addiction was truly
responsible for Perry’s death, not his client.
“There was nobody who was going to stop Mr. Perry from doing what he was
going to do,” Geragos said.
In September, Sangha became the last of five co-defendants to plead
guilty, admitting to one count of using her home for drug distribution,
three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution
of ketamine resulting in death.
Geragos denounced the prosecution's use of the moniker “Ketamine Queen,”
blaming it on E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney when the case was
filed.
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Suzanne Morrison, mother of Matthew Perry, walks into court with her
husband Keith Morrison before Jasveen Sangha, who plead guilty to
selling Perry a lethal dose of the drug ketamine in the days before
his death, appears in court for sentencing on Wednesday, April 8,
2026 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
 "That was not her name, that was his
very clever name to draw media attention this case," Geragos said.
Perry had been using the drug through his regular doctor as a legal
off-label treatment for depression. But he sought more than the
doctor would give him. That at first led him to Dr. Salvador
Plasencia, who admitted to illegally selling Perry ketamine and was
sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison. And, days before his death, it
led Perry to Sangha, and a $6,000 cash buy that included the lethal
dose.
Another doctor, who admitted to providing Plasencia the ketamine he
sold to Perry, was sentenced to eight months of home detention.
Perry’s assistant and his friend, who admitted acting as the actor’s
middlemen, are awaiting sentencing.
The judge said she was trying to carefully calibrate the sentences
for the five defendants. She expressed concern about the balance
during the hearing, asking lawyers why Sangha deserved so much more
time than Plasencia or Perry's assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, who
obtained and injected the drugs at Perry's request and injected them
into him.
Geragos seized on this and said the disparity was outrageous.
“The person who supplies the ammunition, they're more culpable than
the person who pulls the trigger?” he asked.
But before sentencing, Garnett said the size of Sangha's drug
business, the years she spent dealing and her long list of clients
clearly made her more culpable. And she said she believed Sangha's
lack of a criminal history was underrepresented.
The judge also cited Sangha's continued dealing after learning
through a text message from his sister that one of her customers,
33-year-old Cody McLaury, had died in 2019.
The sister, Kimberly McLaury, spoke in court.
“Had you stopped selling ketamine when I texted you, we wouldn't be
here today,” she said.
Perry’s stepmother Debbie Perry told Sangha she had caused pain for
“hundreds, maybe thousands” of people.
The judge commended Sangha for the “countless” letters of support
she got from family and friends touting her decency and loving
nature. Many of them were there in court, sitting on the opposite
side from Perry's family.
“There's no joy in this process,” Garnett told the victim's family
members. “Maybe at the end of the day you will feel a sense of
justice.”
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