LA's 'Ketamine Queen' charged in Matthew Perry's death

On social media, Jasveen Sangha presented herself as an influential LA personality – she hung out with celebrities, wore fashionable clothes and jetted around the globe for luxurious vacations.

She posed for Instagram photos with actor Charlie Sheen and Perla Hudson, the ex-wife of Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Social media posts show luxurious trips to Tokyo and a resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, including pre-flight caviar in the PS Luxury Travel Lounge at Los Angeles International Airport.

To celebrate her 40th birthday, Sangha threw a fancy “Players Ball”-themed party at Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a Koreatown lounge. Dressed in a head-to-toe pink outfit adorned with glitter and feathers, she posed with guests on a makeshift red carpet.

“The eyes are useless when the mind is blind,” she wrote on Instagram.

It's hard to say how close Sangha actually is to the celebrities who appear on her social media. Sheen and Hudson could not be reached for comment.

Federal prosecutors allege that Sangha ran a drug business so lucrative that she was known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen.”

She is now one of five people accused of conspiring to distribute ketamine to Matthew Perry, who died last fall from the acute effects of the drug.

In an indictment, authorities allege that Sangha supplied the ketamine that the “Friends” actor was injected with on the day of his death – and that she sold drugs for years from her North Hollywood apartment, nicknamed the “Sangha Hideout.”

Sangha has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, the 41-year-old could face life in prison.

Prosecutors filed a motion asking that Sangha be held without bail, claiming that “given the amount of drugs the defendant sold, there are likely more victims.” The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to answer further questions about the investigation, saying only that it is ongoing.

Law enforcement sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said investigators are trying to determine whether other overdose deaths can be linked to drugs Sangha allegedly supplied.

Her lawyer did not respond to a request for comment from the Times. But attorney Mark Geragos, whose firm represents Sangha, asked in an interview with News Nation how authorities knew who supplied Perry with the fatal dose of ketamine.

“I've never seen a pathologist who can say, 'I'm going to do an autopsy and find out where these drugs came from.' They can't. It's a tragedy by any standard, but just because it's a tragedy doesn't mean it's a crime,” Geragos told the outlet.

In an affidavit, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent described Sangha as a “wholesale dealer” who kept “handwritten notes” that appeared to contain thousands of dollars' worth of drug transactions. In several chat threads with customers on encrypted messaging apps, she used coded language for drug transactions, according to the agent.

She referred to her supplier as a “master chef” or “scientist,” prosecutors wrote in court documents. Her electronic devices contained videos of her cooking liquid ketamine on a stove to convert it into powder, according to prosecutors.

Ketamine is typically used as an anesthetic, but it has grown in popularity over the past decade as a therapeutic treatment for certain mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder and depression. At the same time, the drug, known in the party scene as “Special K,” has become increasingly popular for recreational purposes, says Dr. Wesley Ryan, who administers ketamine in his psychiatric practice in Marina del Rey.

“I've noticed that a lot more people are taking ketamine now than they were five or 10 years ago,” he said. “It's bizarre because it's a sedative, but it's somehow replaced cocaine in a party setting.”

Some people snort or inject the drug to experience euphoric or “dissociative” effects that make them feel disconnected from their bodies, experts say. In very high doses, ketamine can make people immobile and hallucinate, but it also carries the risk of breathing difficulties and increased heart strain.

A photo from a chargesheet filed on August 14 shows items allegedly seized from Jasveen Sangha's apartment.

(US District Court)

Prosecutors allege in court documents that Sangha posed as “a prominent drug dealer with high-value goods,” from methamphetamine to magic mushrooms. But ketamine was allegedly her specialty.

Perry, who had become addicted to intravenous ketamine, began purchasing the powerful drug from a doctor in Southern California in late September., Around mid-October, Perry contacted an acquaintance, Erik Fleming, who was obtaining a supply of ketamine from Sangha, according to the indictment and law enforcement officials. Over the course of less than a month, Fleming and Sangha sold the actor about 50 vials of the drug for about $11,000, according to prosecutors.

Sheen's ex-wife, Brooke Mueller, played a key role in the investigation, voluntarily providing investigators with key information after Perry's death that linked Sangha and Fleming to the case, according to law enforcement sources who were not authorized to speak about the investigation.

Prosecutors allege Sangha knew the dangers of ketamine. In August 2019, she allegedly sold the drug to another man, Cody McLaury, before he overdosed, court records show. A family member of McLaury later sent her a text message saying the ketamine led to his death.

After receiving the text message, the prosecutor said, she searched on Google: “Can ketamine be listed as the cause of death?”

Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home on October 28. Authorities later determined that he had died of acute effects of ketamine.

When Sangha learned of Perry's death, she immediately tried to distance herself from the situation, according to prosecutors. She called Fleming using an encrypted communications app and discussed with him how she could “distance herself from the sale of ketamine,” the indictment says. She then sent a text message using the app that read, “Delete all our messages.”

Less than a month later, Sangha was vacationing in Tokyo, drinking afternoon tea and sipping a lychee martini at a luxury hotel overlooking the city.

Sangha was previously arrested in March in another federal drug case in which she was accused of being involved in a drug trafficking scheme, court records show. During a search of her home this month, federal agents and Los Angeles Police Department detectives said they found about 79 vials of ketamine, more than three pounds of orange pills containing methamphetamine, psilocybin mushrooms, cocaine and prescription drugs that appeared to have been obtained fraudulently.

They also found a money counter, a scale covered in drug residue, a signal and hidden camera detector, and a green journal with handwritten notes about drug transactions totaling several thousand dollars., Prosecutors wrote in a brief filed with the court.

Sangha, who has dual citizenship of the United States and the United Kingdom, was released from custody in that case after posting $100,000 bail and surrendering her passport, court records show.

One of Sangha's neighbors, who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity, said agents took about 20 boxes from the modern apartment complex during the search.

Another neighbor, who identified herself only as Kelly, moved into the building earlier this year and described the tenants as a mix of families and professionals. In the days after the charges against Sangha were announced, television vans and reporters blocked off the sidewalk outside, Kelly said.

“Anything involving a celebrity attracts attention,” Kelly said, adding that the circumstances of the case did not surprise her.

Sangha graduated from Calabasas High School in 2001. She posed for her graduation photo wearing a red turtleneck and a stoic expression. Part of her graduation quote was, “It's not what they say about you that matters, it's what they whisper to you.”

She then attended UC Irvine and graduated with a bachelor's degree in social sciences in 2005, the university said. On Instagram, she said she received an MBA from Hult International Business School in 2010, but the school did not respond to a Times request for confirmation.

Until 2017, she co-owned a nail salon called Stiletto Nail Bar in Studio City. But she and her partner were eventually kicked out of the business for not paying their rent, their landlord wrote in court documents.

All of their equipment and supplies remained in the house, according to a civil lawsuit filed by Sangha. The lawsuit was later dismissed and settled out of court.

Although she posed as an event curator on social media, prosecutors wrote in court filings that Sangha had been unemployed since at least 2019. Still, they note in court filings, she was able to afford the rent on her North Hollywood apartment, which was advertised online for more than $3,000 a month.

When authorities began their investigation, she was driving a rented Range Rover. She later switched to a 2024 BMW, prosecutors wrote in their court documents.

Clancy Carter, a friend of Sangha's, told the Daily Mail the two attended the Golden Globes and Oscars together and she believes Sangha works in marketing and event planning for celebrities. Carter declined to comment further when contacted by the Times.

“She always wears the nicest designer clothes. She has a family that takes care of her,” Carter told the newspaper. “She was never the type of person who needed money.”

Times librarians Cary Schneider and Scott Wilson contributed to this report.