‘Ketamine Queen’ pleads guilty in Matthew Perry death case

LOS ANGELES (AP):

A woman branded as the ‘Ketamine Queen’ pleaded guilty Wednesday to selling actor Matthew Perry the drug that killed him, becoming the fifth and final defendant charged in Perry’s overdose death to admit guilt. Jasveen Sangha pleaded guilty to five federal charges, including providing the ketamine that led to Perry’s death. Her trial had been planned to start later this month.

Perry’s mother, Suzanne Perry, and his stepfather, Dateline reporter Keith Morrison, sat in the audience. It was their first time attending court proceedings since the announcement of the indictments one year ago.

Wearing tan jail garb, Sangha stood in court Wednesday next to her attorney Mark Geragos as she repeated “guilty” five times when US District Court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett asked for her pleas.

Before that, she answered “yes, your Honour” to dozens of procedural questions, hedging slightly when the judge asked if she knew the drugs she was giving to co-defendant and middleman Erik Fleming were going to Perry.

“There was no way I could tell 100 per cent,” she said. She later added, to a similar question on vials of ketamine she gave to Fleming, that “I didn’t know if all of them or some of them” were bound for Perry. The comments didn’t affect her plea agreement.

Prosecutors had cast Sangha, a 42-year-old citizen of the US and the UK, as a prolific drug dealer who was known to her customers as the ‘Ketamine Queen’, using the term often in press releases and court documents.

Making good on a deal she signed on August 18, Sangha pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death.

“She feels horrible about all of this. Nobody wants to be in the chain of causation, for lack of a better term,” Geragos said outside the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. “She feels horrible and she’s felt horrible since day one.”

Sangha admitted to selling drugs directly to 33-year-old Cody McLaury, who died from an overdose in 2019. McLaury had no connection to Perry.

Prosecutors agreed to drop three other counts.

Geragos, whose other clients have included Michael Jackson, Chris Brown and the Menendez brothers, told the judge that the deal was reached “after a robust back-and-forth with the government”.

The final plea deal came a year after federal prosecutors announced the indictments in Perry’s October 28, 2023 death, after a sweeping investigation.

Sangha is scheduled to be sentenced on December 10. She could get up to 65 years in prison. The judge is not required to give her a shorter term because of the plea agreement, but prosecutors said they will ask for less than the maximum. None of the co-defendants have been sentenced. Sangha has been in custody for about a year, while her co-defendants have been released on bond.

“I thought the government was turning the responsibility in this case on its head,” Geragos said outside court. “I think that most people, if you talk to them about this case, their biggest problem with it is, ‘why is she in custody and the people, whether it’s medical professionals or the people who are actually ingesting the drug, or the people who were administering the drug, are out?’”

Geragos suggested that he would provide mitigating evidence before sentencing.

Sangha and Dr Salvador Plasencia, who pleaded guilty in July, had been the primary targets of the investigation. Three others — Dr Mark Chavez, Kenneth Iwamasa and Fleming — pleaded guilty in exchange for their cooperation.

Perry was found dead in his Los Angeles home by Iwamasa, his assistant. The medical examiner ruled that ketamine, typically used as a surgical anaesthetic, was the primary cause of death.