She’s charged in one of the biggest celebrity deaths of 2023.
She’s linked to the death of another man five years ago.
But friends of a British-American woman known as the”Ketamine Queen” apparently have no problem painting her in the best possible light.
After all, as one put it to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, “nobody’s forcing anybody to do drugs.”
The friends spoke to the Daily Mail on Thursday, the same day five arrests were reported in the death of Matthew Perry, the former “Friends” star who was found dead in his hot tub in October.
Those arrested included two doctors, Perry’s personal assistant, a drug-dealing middle man, and 41-year-old Jasveen Sangha, a woman known as the “Ketamine Queen” of North Hollywood, according to a Justice Department news release.
Sangha, as one drug dealer wrote in a text, according to the Daily Mail, focused her trade on “high end and celebs.”
She certainly moved in “high end” circles in the entertainment world, according to the Daily Mail report.
“She knows a lot of people in the industry,” interior designer and Sangha friend Clancy Carter told the Daily Mail. “Her and I have been to the Golden Globes and the Oscars. There’s a lot of celebrities she was mingling with.”
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Carter described Sangha as “uplifting, bubbly and sweet” and “spiritual” — and always well turned out.
“She’s always in the nicest designer clothes. She has a family that takes care of her,” Carter told the Daily Mail. “She has never been the type of person who needed money.
“She has property in the U.K. She’s always traveling and doing fun things with her family.
“I would never guess she would do something like this at all. But if they have evidence connected directly to her, I’m completely shocked.”
Another friend took a more sanguine view, noting that she’d never seen Sangha being involved with drugs herself.
“She’s a friend of mine,” artist Heather Pardieu told the Daily Mail. “I mean, at the end of the day, nobody’s forcing anybody to do drugs.”
Whether that’s true or not, it’s also irrelevant to the charges Sangha faces. And deciding to break the law — and apparently do it for years — is definitely a choice.
Sangha is charged with 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, according to the news release.
Sangha, through an intermediary identified as Erik Fleming, sold Perry’s personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, the ketamine that killed Perry, according to the news release.
And Sangha knew well the dangers of the drug, which is not only used to combat depression but also as an anesthetic for surgical procedures.
According to the news release, she sold ketamine in 2019 to another man who died over an overdose of the drug.
On learning the news at the time, “Sangha conducted a Google search for ‘can ketamine be listed as a cause of death[?],’” the news release stated.
After Perry’s death in October, according to the release, “Sangha texted Fleming, ‘Delete all our messages.’”
And if the federal evidence holds up, it’s fairly obvious Perry wasn’t the only one Sangha was supplying.
According to the news release:
“After Perry’s death, federal agents and detectives with the Los Angeles Police Department executed search warrants at Sangha’s residence, where they found evidence of drug trafficking, including approximately 79 vials of ketamine, approximately 1.4 kilograms (3.1 pounds) of orange pills containing methamphetamine, psilocybin mushrooms, cocaine, and prescription drugs that appeared to be fraudulently obtained.”
If convicted of all charges, Sangha faces between 10 years and life in prison, according to the release.
