August 24, 2024

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By Hunter Clauss Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Saturday, Aug. 24. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend: L.A.’s “Ketamine Queen” lived a celebrity-studded life. Now she’s been charged in Matthew Perry’s death. The Fed tees up interest rate cuts. In the mood for Southern-style brunch? Check out these eight L.A. restaurants. And here’s today’s e-newspaper Who is the ‘Ketamine Queen’ charged in actor Matthew Perry’s death? Jasveen Sangha appeared to live the life of an L.A. power player. In social media posts, she rubbed elbows with celebrities, sported fashionable outfits and jetted across the globe on lavish vacations. But federal prosecutors argue Sangha was actually running a narcotics operation so lucrative that she was known to her customers as the “Ketamine Queen.” My colleagues Nathan Solis, Hannah Fry, Connor Sheets and Richard Winton this week examined the case prosecutors are building against Sangha, who is one of five people charged in actor Matthew Perry’s death. Sangha has pleaded not guilty. Here’s what they found: Inside the ‘Sangha stash house’ Jasveen Sangha is pictured at an event in Beverly Hills in December 2022. (Jojo Korsh/BFA.com/Shutterstock) Authorities allege Sangha sold drugs from her North Hollywood apartment, nicknamed the “Sangha stash house” in the indictment. Court records detail how she had saved videos on her electronic devices showing her cooking liquid ketamine on a stovetop to convert it to powder. Prosecutors allege that Sangha held “herself out as a celebrity drug dealer with high-quality goods,” but she knew the dangers of ketamine. Sangha is accused of selling ketamine in 2019 to a man who later overdosed. One of the man’s family members texted Sangha, telling her the ketamine had caused the death. After receiving the text, prosecutors say, she conducted a Google search: “Can ketamine be listed as a cause of death[?]” A search for other alleged victims Law enforcement sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity said investigators are trying to determine whether any other overdose deaths can be tied to Sangha. But lawyer Mark Geragos, whose firm represents Sangha, has questioned how authorities can determine who supplied a fatal dose of ketamine. “I’ve never seen a pathologist yet who’s going to be able to say, ‘I’m going to do an autopsy and I’m going to trace back where these drugs came from.’ They can’t do that. It’s a tragedy all the way around, but just because it’s a tragedy doesn’t mean it’s criminal,” Geragos told News Nation. ADVERTISEMENT The week’s biggest stories (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times) With the DNC in the rearview mirror, Harris hopes to keep momentum rolling Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in an incredibly close race to the White House, according to polls. Some Democrats worry that their euphoria over the last several weeks could lead to complacency. Harris soared past the high bar set for her Democratic convention acceptance speech, columnist Mark Z. Barabak and Anita Chabria write. This week’s DNC was about generational change, but the middle-class rhetoric coupled with an incremental policy agenda rekindled the Clinton era. Interest rate cuts could be a big relief for California residents Amid concerns the economy could be headed for a recession, Federal Reserve Jerome H. Powell this week signaled interest rates cuts are on the table next month. The news comes as California has felt the impact of high interest rates more severely than other states. The unemployment rate, for example, has been among the highest in the nation while job creation has lagged. Her mail kept getting stolen. So she sent herself an Apple AirTag as bait for thieves A Santa Barbara County woman mailed a package containing the tracking device to catch suspects who had ransacked her post office box — and it worked. AirTags have been somewhat controversial. Apple faces a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of taking inadequate steps to prevent stalkers from using the device. More big stories FBI agents raided the homes of Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do and his daughter. President Biden lay low this week during a vacation at a Democratic donor’s estate near Santa Barbara. The Orange County baseball field featured in “A League of Their Own” was destroyed by a fire. A gardener discovered a cache of hand grenades on a Baldwin Park sidewalk. A SoCal artist paid tribute to controversial Olympian breakdancer Raygun. California’s mountains could see a rare August snow.