Back in the days when she was a hard-working schoolgirl with a bright future, Jasveen Sangha had some advice for her fellow students at Calabasas High School.
“It’s not what they say about you, it’s what they whisper,” the British-born teenager wrote in the California school’s 2001 yearbook, quoting Hollywood actor Errol Flynn.
He added another cheesy line, this time from Italian director Luciano De Crescezno: “We are all angels with only one wing. We can only fly by hugging each other.”
Who would have believed that the rather unassuming teenager, smiling demurely alongside her classmates more than two decades ago, would grow up to become the so-called Ketamine Queen of Los Angeles, the 41-year-old woman allegedly responsible for giving Friends star Matthew Perry the lethal dose of the drug that killed him in October last year?
Sangha is one of five people charged with involvement in the ketamine death of Perry, 54, including her personal assistant and two doctors. She was charged on Aug. 15 with conspiracy to distribute ketamine, maintaining a drug-related facility, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute ketamine and five counts of distribution of ketamine.
If found guilty, she could face life in prison. How on earth could the daughter of a doctor, born into a respectable British Sikh family in Loughton, Essex, become involved in the sordid death of one of the world’s most famous television actors and allegedly become part of a “vast criminal network” supplying drugs to celebrities – a network many say she could now expose?
British-born Jasveen Sangha is one of five people charged with involvement in the ketamine death of 54-year-old Matthew Perry.
Her transformation from a student to a woman with a wealthy lifestyle, whose appearance has been altered by blonde hair dye, blue contact lenses and, associates say, the rhinoplasty adored by so many California women, is documented in her social media posts.
Many of the photographs on her Instagram account also feature her thrice-married 66-year-old British mother, who used to run KFC restaurant franchises in California before being taken to court by the fast-food giant about a decade ago.
Jasveen’s flamboyant uncle Paul Singh, 64, a former business partner of the late British nightclub owner Peter Stringfellow, is also frequently photographed alongside his niece in Los Angeles clubs.
There is no suggestion that any of the relatives are involved in any of the crimes of which Sangha is accused.
This week, a Mail investigation uncovered Sangha’s past in both the UK and the US.
According to prosecutors in court last week, his North Hollywood home was even known as the “Sangha Stash House” and was used to “store, package and distribute narcotics.” More on the precise allegations made in court against Sangha in connection with Perry’s death in the hot tub at his Pacific Palisades home later.
She pleaded not guilty to the charges last week but was denied bail by a judge, calling her a “flight risk.”
All in all, a surprising turn of events for a woman born in Essex in July 1983.
Jasveen’s mother, Nilem, also born in Ilford, was the daughter of a hosiery wholesaler who set up a fashion business with showrooms in London. Her first marriage, at the age of 24 in 1982 to a doctor, was short-lived but produced Jasveen.
In 1986 she remarried and changed her daughter’s name to that of her second husband, Dr. Ajmel Sangha.
The family, along with Jasveen’s maternal grandparents, moved to California and settled in Tujunga, northwest of Los Angeles.
Jasveen’s mother, Nilem, divorced and remarried.
Jasveen was sent to school in nearby Calabasas, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Los Angeles, an area made famous by the Kardashians on reality TV. This was, then, the dazzling world that Jasveen Sangha entered as an impressionable young girl.
Who would have believed that the rather unassuming teenager would grow up to become the so-called Ketamine Queen of Los Angeles?
He was a member of a statewide academic organization called CSF, The California Scholarship Federation, which encourages academic achievement and community service among students.
No one was surprised when he won a place at UC Irvine, one of the best public universities in the United States.
At home, life was far more tumultuous for Sangha’s family.
Together with her third husband, Ashok Sahadevan, Sangha’s mother, Nilem, ran a group of KFC fast-food franchises in California through a company called Tasty Birds Management. They were sued by employees and the takeaway chain for failing to pay wages and royalties for use of the KFC logo.
The California Department of Industrial Relations issued a decision in December 2010 requiring the couple to pay $12,000 to the employees.
In 2013, a judge ordered the couple to pay KFC $52,526.65, an amount that had increased to $62,877 by 2015.
Nilem’s husband filed for bankruptcy before the case was finalized, leaving Nilem to foot the entire bill. It is unclear whether she ever paid the amount owed, but the family’s four-bedroom home, valued at $1.25 million, is on the market.
Amidst this conflict, Jasveen returned to the UK in 2010 on her British passport and studied for an MBA at Hult Business School in London.
Old friends say she was a changed woman when she returned to Los Angeles.
“He looked completely different than when he was in high school,” a former associate told the New York Post this week.
“It looked like he had had a nose job and maybe had some other things done to his face.”
Back in Los Angeles, Jasveen attempted to start her own business and opened a nail salon called Stiletto Nail Bar. The business was a failure and she and her partner were sued for non-payment of rent two years after opening.
It was at this time, contemporaries say, that Sangha’s life seemed to diverge from theirs.
Matthew Perry in 2023 going shopping for clothes
While many of them were settling down, she “was partying a lot and going overboard on the weekends.”
For a time she had a steady boyfriend, but the breakup of their relationship around 2014 marked a change in her character. A friend who spoke to the New York Post this week attributed her move into the party world to her loneliness.
Did the wealthy people he associated with make Sangha attracted to him?
She dyed her hair blonde, began wearing heavy makeup and designer clothes. She developed a fondness for flashy Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry and clothes by Versace, Louis Vuitton and Chanel.
She also became a party planner for the rich and famous, using the name ‘Jazzy Productions’ and began making appearances at Golden Globes and Oscars events.
“She developed a lot of connections and was with a clan of girls,” the friend said.
Among them was Perla Hudson, who until 2018 was married to Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash.
The photos show Sangha and Hudson standing next to a private jet and at an event at Sotheby’s in Beverly Hills. She was also pictured with her mother and uncle, alongside actor Charlie Sheen, who has been in and out of drug rehab for years.
The image appeared on her uncle Paul’s Instagram with the caption: “It’s always a family affair when we do it.”
The friend who spoke to the New York Post this week said Sangha was hosting parties at her North Hollywood apartment. “I had never been to a party at Jasveen’s house where drugs were out of the ordinary. She had access to drugs and it started to seem like a viable option. She could get her hands on liquid ketamine.”
Sangha’s life certainly seems to have been a stark contrast to that of her former stepfather, Dr. Ajmel Sangha, who gave her his surname as a child.
As medical director of California Correctional Health Services, Dr. Sangha devotes his time to getting inmates off drugs and reducing deaths. In the past, he had the heartbreaking task of notifying family members that their loved ones had died in prison from an overdose.
“I used to think, what a waste, what a waste of life,” she said in an interview with a CCHCS in-house magazine.
Under his watch, overdose hospitalizations at the prison dropped by 50 percent. He said much of his success was due to important conversations.
“Are they listening to patients? Are they treating them with the dignity and respect they deserve, that everyone deserves?”
When the Mail spoke to Dr Sangha this week, he simply said: “She is not my daughter.”
US website TMZ claims Sangha met Matthew Perry, who had battled drug addiction for decades, in rehab. She later referred to him as “Chandler”, the name of his character in Friends.
Just two weeks after Perry’s death in October last year, she was enjoying lychee martinis at Tokyo’s Mandarin Oriental hotel, where suites cost £1,500 a night.
In February, she and her mother travelled together to London. The family is believed to still own property in Loughton.
Back in Los Angeles, Sangha was arrested in March on drug charges after federal agents found a stash of thousands of pills, three pounds of methamphetamine, mushrooms, cocaine and vials of ketamine in her home.
On that occasion, his mother posted bail of $100,000.
Sangha seemed unfazed by the charges. Just hours before she was arrested again by Los Angeles police on Aug. 15 in connection with Perry’s death, she was showing off a new haircut on social media.
She is also implicated in the ketamine death of another victim, Cody McLaury, in 2019.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, but his bail was revoked and he is currently behind bars.
“Hollywood celebrities should be shaking in their boots,” former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani said this week, after warning that Sangha might well try to cut a deal and obtain a lighter sentence by handing over the names of some of his famous clients.
“Anyone who has anything to do with Jasveen Sangha should be really worried right now.”
Legal sources believe she could hold the key to exposing who is trafficking and buying in Hollywood, if she accepts a plea deal.
Mr Rahmani added: “There is overwhelming evidence against him. He is going through a very painful time now.”
Although this saga is far from over, what an extraordinary situation for a woman born in a small town in Essex whose family moved to the US in search of a better life.