Jasveen Sangha, a drug dealer who pleaded guilty in September to drug-related charges, including providing actor Matthew Perry with the dose of ketamine that killed him, was sentenced on April 8 to 15 years in prison. “These were not mistakes. They were horrible decisions,” Sangha said at the hearing, adding that her choices “shattered people’s lives and the lives of their family and friends,” per the AP. Sangha, 42, was known to her clients as the “Ketamine Queen,” according to court documents. Following an investigation into the “Friends” actor’s fatal overdose in 2023 at age 54, Sangha was charged alongside four others in August 2024. She pleaded guilty to one count of using her home for drug distribution, three counts of distribution of ketamine, and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death. Before her guilty plea, Sangha’s attorney, Mark Geragos, denied the allegations against Sangha, saying in a documentary last year that she had “never met Matthew Perry.” Sangha, who has been in custody since August 2024, is a dual citizen of the United States and Britain. Ahead of Sangha’s sentencing, prosecutors asked Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett to sentence Sangha to 15 years in prison. “For years … Sangha operated a high-volume drug trafficking business out of her North Hollywood residence,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum. “To cultivate her business, marketed herself as an exclusive dealer who catered to high-profile Hollywood clientele. … While worked to expand and profit from her drug trafficking, she knew — and disregarded — the grave harm her conduct was causing.” In a victim impact statement that read like a poem, Perry’s stepmother, Debbie Perry, asked the court for a maximum sentence for Sangha. “The pain you’ve caused/ to hundreds maybe thousands,” she wrote, “Is irreversible.” Matthew Perry, best known for his role as Chandler Bing on “Friends,” the sitcom that became a cultural behemoth in the 1990s, wrote openly about his struggles with addiction. In his 2022 memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” he recounted his struggles with Vicodin, alcohol, cocaine, Xanax and Suboxone, as well as scores of rehab stints. “You can track the trajectory of my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season,” Perry wrote of his 10 seasons on “Friends.” “When I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol. When I’m skinny, it’s pills. When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.” He also starred in films such as “The Whole Nine Yards” (2000) and “17 Again” (2009), and was Emmy-nominated for his appearances on “The West Wing” and in the TV movie “The Ron Clark Story.” Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his home in October 2023. Around the time of his death, Perry had been receiving ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety, but he was also addicted to the drug, according to prosecutors. The Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office concluded the actor had died of the acute effects of ketamine, ruling the death an accident with no signs of foul play, before an investigation was launched into the death. Sangha is the third of the suspects connected to Perry’s death to be charged. In December, Salvador Plasencia was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for multiple drug charges. Later that month, Mark Chavez received a sentence of eight months of home confinement. Both Plasencia and Chavez are physicians. Perry’s acquaintance Erik Fleming and his live-in assistant Kenneth Iwamasa both pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine in October 2024 and will be sentenced in the coming weeks.

Summary: Massachusetts House plans social media ban for under 14 Bill requires age verification and parental consent Attorney General Andrea Campbell supports the bill The Massachusetts House of Representatives is planning on passing a bill April 8 that would ban social media use for children under 14 in the state. The ban would be “among the most restrictive in the entire country,” Speaker Ron Mariano, D-Quincy, and Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, D-Boston, said in a statement April 6. “The simple reality is that Massachusetts must do more to ensure that our laws keep pace with modern challenges – especially when it comes to protecting our children, and to setting students up for success in the classroom and beyond,” they continued. The measure was added to a bill passed by the Senate in July 2025 that would ban cellphones for students throughout the school day. What to know about the social media, cell phone ban bill The bill creates restrictions on both social media and cell phone use for minors, according to a bill summary provided by the House. It would require social media platforms to implement an age-verification system that would prohibit minors under the age of 14 from using their site; and 14- and 15-year-olds could use social media platforms, but only if given verifiable consent from the parent. Social media platform is defined as “a public website, online service, online application or mobile application that displays content primarily generated by users and allows users to create, share and view user-generated content with other users,” according to the bill summary. It doesn’t include text messaging services like email or SMS. The bill directs the attorney general to create regulations for implementation by Sept. 1 and the policy would go into effect Oct. 1. The bill would also require school districts to create policies to prohibit students from using personal electronic devices like cellphones during the school day including during school-sponsored activities during the school day. Ten districts would participate in a pilot program that renders students’ personal electronic devices inoperable on school grounds during the school day. Will the bill pass? The bill was expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House Wednesday, April 8. Then, since the House changed the bill from its original Senate version, the House is expected to set up a six-person conference committee to create consensus legislation that will then have to go back to both chambers for approval before heading to the governor’s desk. There’s a lot of support for this type of bill at the state level. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who has filed several lawsuits against social media companies such as TikTok and Meta for harming young users, filed the original version of the Senate bill, which was dubbed the STUDY Act. Massachusetts Gov. Maura T. Healey has also voiced support for stronger social media protections for users under 18 years old: In her 2026 State of the Commonwealth address, Healey proposed mandatory age-verification systems, requiring parental consent and disabling features like continuous scrolling and notifications between certain hours. Additionally, many high schools in the state already ban cell phone use including Barnstable High School, Newton Public Schools and Gardner Public Schools.

Summary: El Paso County files FOIA lawsuit against ICE County attorney Christina Sanchez leads legal action Three Socorro warehouses sold to DHS for $123 million The El Paso County Commissioners Court has approved a request to file a lawsuit related to immigration detention centers against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The lawsuit approved by the commissions on Monday, April 6, is related to ICE and DHS failure to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request for information pertaining to planned immigrant detention centers in El Paso. The federal lawsuit will be filed in the Western District of Texas on behalf of the county alleging the violation of the FOIA. County Attorney Christina Sanchez is seeking information including site maps, applicable permitting requirements and processes, public notice, public comment periods and meeting or discussion related to the proposed site of a massive immigration detention center in Socorro, Texas. The County Attorney's Office also is investigating whether ICE had followed an environmental assessment. But to date, county officials had not received a response to its requests for public information, Sanchez said. The commissioners had directed Sanchez to produce a report detailing what was known about the planned immigration detention centers in the county. Her office had filed the Freedom of Information Act request for documents as part of this report. The report was prepared following a resolution adopted by the court on Feb. 3 over plans to transform three warehouses into a massive immigration detention center in Socorro. Over 200 El Pasoans turned out to voice their opposition to the planned detention center during public comment in the commissioners court on Jan. 26 The three massive warehouses in Socorro had been sold by the company El Paso Logistics 2 LLC on Jan. 27 to the DHS for $123 million. The site is proposed to hold 8,500 people. DHS moving forward with Socorro detention center While the purchasing of new warehouses was paused by the Department of Homeland Security, plans are advancing for the transformation of the massive warehouses in Socorro into immigration detention centers. DHS has not provided a full timeline for how it will proceed with converting the three warehouses in Socorro into detention centers. If completed, El Paso County would have around 13,500 beds for immigrants detained under the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations. The controversial Camp East Montana in East El Paso is the current largest immigration detention center in the United States, holding up to 5,000 people. Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:[email protected]; @palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky. This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso County sues ICE over detention center plans Reporting by Jeff Abbott, El Paso Times / El Paso Times USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect