What we know about the ‘Ketamine Queen’ accused in Matthew Perry’s death

Years before federal investigators branded her a “Ketamine Queen” and accused her of supplying the drugs that killed “Friends” star Matthew Perry, Jasveen Sangha posted an enigmatic quote in her Los Angeles-area high school yearbook.

“It isn’t what they say about you, it’s what they whisper,” the quote next to Sangha’s photo in the Calabasas High School class of 2001 yearbook says. “We are each of us angels w/only 1 wing, we can only fly by embracing 1 another.”

The yearbook did not acknowledge that the first part of that quote was from Hollywood legend Errol Flynn or that the second half is attributed to Italian actor and director Luciano De Crescenzo.

But since then, the whispers about the now 41-year-old accused drug dealer have turned into a roar.

Sangha on Thursday was one of five people charged in connection with the death of 54-year-old Perry, who was found face down in the heated end of a pool at his Pacific Palisades home on Oct. 28, 2023.

His death, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office, was due to an accidental overdose of ketamine. The hallucinogen has grown in popularity in recent years as an off-label treatment for depression, but experts say it can be addictive and must be used in a controlled setting. The anesthetic with psychedelic properties has also become a popular party drug.

Sangha is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine, one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, one count of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, one count of possession with intent to distribute ketamine, and five counts of distribution of ketamine.

Sangha, who lives in North Hollywood, pleaded not guilty Thursday, but the judge ordered her held without bail, calling her a flight risk.

Wearing large, round glasses and dressed in a baggy, bright-green Nirvana T-shirt during her court appearance, Sangha was far from the glamorous, jet-setting presence she maintains on Instagram and other social media platforms, where she has posted about vacationing in sun-kissed resort cities like Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Sangha had been listed, until it closed, as the “chief financial officer” of a Studio City salon called the Stiletto Nail Bar, records show.

Lawyer Mark Geragos, whose firm represents Sangha, said he thinks prosecutors went too far in charging her and the other defendants.

“Just because it’s a tragedy doesn’t mean it’s criminal,” Geragos said Thursday on NewsNation’s “Cuomo.” “I just don’t see it in terms of a criminal case.”

“I understand people want to hold people accountable,” he added. “But I think they’re going to have a very tough time holding people accountable.”

Of the five people charged in connection with Perry’s death, two have pleaded not guilty and three others, including the actor’s personal assistant, have pleaded guilty or agreed to plead guilty.

Previous drug charge

In March, Sangha was arrested in a separate federal drug case in which she was accused of being “a large volume drug dealer.” According to court records, she was out on $100,000 bond when she was arrested Thursday and charged in Perry’s death.

Before she was led off to the Metropolitan Detention Center, Sangha looked directly at the reporters covering the proceedings in the courtroom and then appeared to look back at someone in the gallery. It was not immediately clear who that someone was.

What is clear, according to prosecutors, is that Sangha faces anywhere from 10 years to life in a federal prison if she is convicted on all charges in the Perry case.

The go-to

Prosecutors laid out in the federal indictment how they allege Sangha came to be embroiled in one of the highest-profile celebrity drug overdose deaths in recent memory.

According to federal investigators, in October 2023, Sangha became the go-to person that Perry’s acquaintance, Eric Fleming — who has pleaded guilty to drug charges in the actor’s death — reached out to for more ketamine.

Over two weeks, Sangha allegedly sold Perry’s intermediary approximately 15 vials of ketamine for about $11,000 in cash, federal prosecutors said.

“Delete all our messages,” Sangha texted Fleming after Perry died, the prosecutors said.

Then, about two weeks after the star’s death, Sangha posted on Instagram a highlight reel of herself in Tokyo.

Sangha, a dual citizen, was born in Britain and raised in the U.S.

After high school, she studied at the University of California, Irvine, where in 2005 she earned a degree in social sciences and landed a job at Merrill Lynch after graduating, according to a university spokesperson.

Five years later, Sangha was in London, where she graduated with an MBA from the Hult International Business School in 2010, a spokesperson there said.

After that, the details of Sangha’s life are harder to track down.

Living in a ‘drug-selling emporium’

But federal prosecutors said Sangha had been selling ketamine and other drugs “since at least 2019” and had turned her home into a “stash house.”

In a search of her residence after Perry’s death, investigators found “evidence of drug trafficking” that included 79 vials of ketamine and 3.1 pounds of “orange pills” containing “methamphetamine, psilocybin mushrooms, cocaine, and prescription drugs that appeared to be fraudulently obtained,” according to court documents.

They found “what amounted to a drug-selling emporium,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said Thursday.

Sangha’s phone also allegedly contained video files related to drug trafficking, Estrada added, including video in which a voice he recognized as Sangha’s describes “cooking” ketamine in a pot on a stove to convert it into a powder.

She knew that ketamine could be deadly, officials say.

In August 2019, an Alaska man overdosed on ketamine allegedly provided by Sangha, prosecutors said. Afterward, one of his relatives sent her a text. “The ketamine you sold my brother killed him,” they wrote. “It’s listed as the cause of death.”