Actor Matthew Perry in Los Angeles in 2009. Perry was found dead at age 54 at his home in 2023.Phil McCarten/Reuters
A woman charged with selling Matthew Perry the dose of ketamine that killed him is headed for a September trial.
Jasveen Sangha’s trial – the only one forthcoming in the death of the Friends star after four other defendants reached plea agreements with prosecutors – is now set to begin Sept. 23 after an order Tuesday from a federal judge in Los Angeles.
The 42-year-old Sangha, who prosecutors say was known to her customers as “The Ketamine Queen,” is charged with five counts of ketamine distribution, including one count of distribution resulting in death. She has pleaded not guilty and has been held in federal custody since her arrest last year.
Doctor pleads guilty to selling Matthew Perry ketamine before Friends star’s death
Her trial had been scheduled to start Aug. 19, but the judge postponed it for the fourth time since her April, 2024, indictment after both sides agreed it should be moved.
Sangha’s lawyers said they needed the time to go through the huge amount of evidence they have received from the prosecution and to finish their own investigation.
Sangha was one of the two biggest targets in the investigation of Perry’s death, along with Dr. Salvador Plasencia, who pleaded guilty to ketamine distribution last month. Perry’s personal assistant, his friend and another doctor also entered guilty pleas and are cooperating with prosecutors. All are awaiting sentencing.
Perry, who was found dead at age 54 at his home on Oct. 23, 2023, had been getting ketamine from his regular doctor for treatment of depression, an increasingly common off-label use for the surgical anesthetic.
But prosecutors say when the doctor wouldn’t give Perry as much as he wanted, he illegally sought more from Plasencia, then still more from Sangha, who they say presented herself as “a celebrity drug dealer with high quality goods.”
Perry’s assistant and friend said in their plea agreements that they acted as middlemen to buy large amounts of ketamine for Perry from Sangha, including 25 vials for US$6,000 in cash a few days before his death. Prosecutors allege that included the doses that killed Perry.
