A few weeks after Matthew Perry was discovered floating face down in a hot tubthe woman who the prosecution claims supplied the ketamine that killed the actor was having afternoon tea at a five-star hotel in Japan and taking mirror selfies while modeling a kimono. Several months later, he posted highlights from a trip to Mexicowhere she enjoyed caviar at the airport, sitting poolside on the beach and admiring a drink inside a coconut.
To the woman, Jasveen Sangha, He liked to share images of a glamorous life on social networks, in which he rubbed shoulders with celebrities and traveled around the world, to Spain, China and Dubai.
But their home was a mid-rise building for upper-class wannabes in North Hollywood, an unglamorous space in an unremarkable part of the city. There, prosecutors say, Sangha manufactured, stored and distributed illegal drugs for at least five years, including those linked to the deaths of Perry and another man.
Last March, when Federal authorities searched the apartment where Sangha lived on a fourth floor, they said they had found cocaine, 79 vials of ketamine and 1.3 kilos of orange pills that contained methamphetamine. Prosecutors noted in court documents that her clients knew her as “the ketamine queen.”
“Given the volume of drugs the defendant sold, it is likely that there were more victims,” they wrote in court documents.
Sangha was initially arrested in March on drug charges and released on bail; In August, federal prosecutors filed a new complaint accusing her and four others of playing a role in Perry’s death. A judge revoked her bail, saying she was a flight risk and posed a danger to the community, and sent her to jail to await trial.
Two months later, His name kept appearing on a North Hollywood doorbell.. The wood paneling of the door to his apartment was cracked, practically missing, revealing a broken lock.
One recent morning, During the week, a cleaning person was on a benchbusy cleaning the closets of the sterile apartment that, according to prosecutors, had been a “warehouse” for years.
Part of the jet set
Perry died on October 28, 2023 from “acute effects of ketamine.”a powerful anesthetic that has become increasingly popular as a therapy for depression and is also used as a recreational drug. The actor, known for his role as Chandler Bing on the 1990s sitcom Friends, had written openly about his struggles with addiction in a memoir.
Sangha, 41, has pleaded not guilty to charges related to Perry’s overdoseincluding distribution of ketamine resulting in death, and is scheduled to be tried in March; If convicted of all charges, she would face a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
A spokesman for the US attorney’s office declined to comment. When the charges were announced, Martin Estrada, a prosecutor in California, said in a statement: “Drug traffickers who sell dangerous substances are playing with other people’s lives out of greed.”
In an interview with the program Today aired Monday, Suzanne Morrison, Perry’s mother, said she was “thrilled” that people were charged, including Sangha. Perry’s stepfather, Keith Morrison, expressed his agreement.
“What I hope, and I think the agencies involved also hope, is that those who have been supplying people with drugs that will kill them are now on notice,” Morrison said. It doesn’t matter what your professional credentials are. “You’re going down, buddy.”
Mark Geragos, an attorney whose firm is handling Sangha’s case, declined to comment. But in August, in an interview with News Nation, he questioned how authorities could be sure they knew the source of the ketamine that killed Perry: “Just because it’s a tragedy doesn’t mean it’s criminal,” he said.
Unemployment and luxuries
Sangha graduated from a Calabasas schoolan affluent neighborhood of Los Angeles, in 2001, before earning a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from the University of California, Irvine, and an MBA from Hult International Business School in London.
On an Instagram account, Sangha promoted herself as an art and events curator, and as a jet-setter who often shuttled between London and Los Angeles. He reinforced that image with photos and videos of pools, dance parties and fancy dinners around the world, appearing with Charlie Sheen, DJ Khaled and Perla Hudson, ex-wife of guitarist Slash.
(Representatives for Sheen and DJ Khaled did not respond to a request for comment. Attempts to reach Hudson were unsuccessful.)
When Sangha turned 40 last year, she celebrated in a pale pink feather dress and a matching cowboy hat, according to the videos he posted online. At the party, held in the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang lounge of a Los Angeles boutique hotel, a spinning disco ball overhead emitted hot pink lights. The comfortable seats vibrated with the music while silver containers waited for ice and champagne.
Prosecutors claim that It is unclear how Sangha financed his lifestyle —they say at various times he drove a Range Rover and a BMW—and that he had apparently been unemployed since at least 2019. Before that, had been involved for a while with the nail salon Studio City Stiletto Nail Bar, an upscale San Fernando Valley neighborhood, according to business records.
When Sangha was arrested in March on charges of drug trafficking, her mother, Nilem Sangha, obtained bail of 100 thousand dollars for release, according to court records.
Nilem Sangha did not respond to requests for comments, and several attempts to contact other members of Jasveen Sangha’s family by phone and in person were unsuccessful. A woman who answered at a number listed in Sangha court records declined to comment.
Still Much is unknown about Sanghaapart from what he has presented publicly on the internet. In her end-of-year portrait in the Calabasas High School yearbook, she appears with an inscrutable expression, not unlike that of the Mona Lisa. The accompanying quote reads: “It’s not what they say about you, it’s what they whisper.”
Deadly recipe
Perry wasn’t the only person who died after buying ketamine to Sangha, prosecutors allege in the indictment. Court documents say Cody McLaury died of an overdose shortly after Sangha sold him ketamine in August 2019.
Despite knowing of McLaury’s death, according to prosecutors, Sangha continued to distribute illegal drugss from his department for the next five years.
Sangha learned of Perry’s interest in ketamine through an acquaintance who was in contact with the actor’s personal assistant and offered to send him a sample, court documents state. He tried to project an air of exclusivity, calling his supply “incredible” and telling his acquaintance, Erik Fleming, “Take one and try it, I have more if you like it.”
Two days after the offer, according to the prosecution, Sangha sent the actor a sample of ketamine in a glass vial unlabeled with a blue cap. Prosecutors allege that Fleming and Perry’s aide, Kenneth Iwamasa, acted as intermediaries. The next day, Iwamasa purchased 25 vials on Perry’s behalf, according to the indictment; When he bought another 25 two weeks later, Sangha added some ketamine popsicles too.
One of those 50 vials contained the ketamine that killed Perry, according to the indictment.
Both Fleming and Iwamasa have pleaded guilty to criminal charges. When Sangha learned of the actor’s death through the news, he rushed to destroy evidence of his involvement, prosecutors said in court papers. “Delete all our messages,” he told Fleming.
That level of wariness seemed to dissipate in the months that followed, prosecutors say.
In July, not long before she was arrested in connection With Perry’s death, Sangha posted a photo on social media of a bracelet with several pendantss of mushrooms and the message: “Breaking out the old raver treats #ravetothegrave” (rave to the grave).
Prosecutors later wrote in a court document that the post seemed to indicate that Sangha was going to “persist in his drug lifestyle until death,” and that the label #ravetothegrave It was “an insensitive choice of words, considering his actions have sent two victims to their own deaths.”
c.2024 The New York Times Company
Kitty Bennett contributed to the investigation.