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1 month ago
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It's like an episode of Breaking Bad! Matthew Perry's tragic drug-fueled death has a surprising link to a fried chicken franchise.
But rather than Gustavo Fring's fictional Los Pollos Hermanos chain, it's the very real Kentucky Fried Chicken that touches on the Friends star's untimely demise.
DailyMail.com has discovered that the parents of 'Ketamine Queen' Jasveen Sangha – who allegedly supplied the drugs that killed Perry – got into legal trouble over their five KFC restaurants in California.
It was nowhere near the scale of legal problems that Fring was involved in – nor did it have anything to do with their daughter's alleged hustle.
But while Jasveen, 41, was said to be 'cooking' the ketamine Walter White-style on her kitchen stove, her mother Nilem and stepfather Ashok Sahadevan were involved in their own legally contentious culinary company.
'Ketamine Queen' Jasveen Sangha's mother Nilem faced legal problems over five KFC franchises she and her ex husband Ashok Sahadevan owned in California
Matthew Perry's tragic drug-fueled death has a surprising link to a fried chicken franchise. The Friends actor died of an overdose at his LA home on October 28, 2023
The couple ran a group of KFC franchises in California from 2008 – but ended up getting sued by both the state and Colonel Sanders's Louisville-based chain for allegedly playing fast and loose with payments.
In AMC's hit show Breaking Bad, soft-spoken drug king Fring launders meth money through Los Pollos Hermanos before meeting a terrible end when his arch enemy, wheelchair-bound Hector Salamanca, blows him up.
Unlike the TV show, Nilem, 66, and Ashok, 67, have not been accused of any involvement in any drug dealing.
But that doesn't mean they have not had their share of legal trouble.
Nilem and Ashok's company, Tasty Birds Management, was subject to legal complaints in 2010 for failing to pay employees at a KFC outlet in Eureka for vacation hours, overtime and lunch breaks.
California's Department of Industrial Relations issued a decision in December that year, demanding the couple pay out $12,000 to make the two staffers whole.
In the same year the KFC Corporation sued Nilem and Ashok in federal court for failing to pay royalties for their restaurants – two of which were in Eureka with the others in Barstow, Fortuna and Crescent City.
Giancarlo Esposito played the soft-spoken drug lord Gustavo Fring, who hid his money-making scheme behind a fried chicken franchise called Los Pollos Hermanos, iin borth Breaking Bad and its spin-off Better Call Saul
Jasveen was said to cook ketamine in her north Hollywood home years after her mother Navine ran a group of California KFC franchises
Kentucky judge Joseph McKinley awarded KFC a $52,526.65 judgment in 2013, which swelled to $62,877 by December 2015 with 10% interest, according to court documents.
Ashok avoided the debt by declaring bankruptcy before the case was over, leaving Nilem – who took Ashok's last name Sahadevan – to shoulder the entire sum.
Five people – incuding two doctors and his personal assistant have been charged in connection with Perry's death
It is unclear whether she has yet paid off all the debt.
Ashok's bankruptcy filings show he left a long list of creditors in the lurch, including the two chicken shop staffers' $12,000 claim, $41,787 in back rent on one restaurant building and $15,229 on another, and $73,938 on three credit cards.
He even listed an $899,837 debt to Arcata Development Company for an 'amount claimed for fraud and punitive damages in default judgment', over a lawsuit involving a loan he took out to remodel a restaurant in 2009.
While Jasveen Sangha partied with celebrities, attended the Oscars, wore designer clothes and drove luxury cars according to friends, her mother and stepfather fell into an increasingly precarious financial position.
Ashok struggled to stay on the straight and narrow in recent years – serving 30 days in Los Angeles County Jail and 36 months' probation after a DUI and hit-and-run property damage conviction in 2020.
Nilem currently lives in a four-bed $1,250,000 house in Tujunga owned by Ashok, which is now up for sale after going into foreclosure in April.
Walter White frequently visited Los Pollos Hermanos – not always for the chicken
Alleged drug dealer Jasveen Sangha was arrested in connection with the overdose death of Matthew Perry earlier in August 2024, along with several other suspects
The KFC outlet formerly owned by the couple in Fortuna was the subject of a lawsuit brought by the Louisville, Kentucky, based corporation and the fictional business that Gustavo Fring used as a front for his drug operation
The British-born mother also put up the $100,000 bail for her daughter when Jasveen was arrested in March on drug charges after federal agents found a stash of thousands of pills, three pounds of meth, mushrooms, cocaine and dozens of vials of ketamine at her North Hollywood home.
Jasveen was re-arrested this month when prosecutors announced nine more charges related to her alleged ketamine sales that killed Perry. She is also implicated in the ketamine death of another victim Cody McLaury in 2019.
She now faces between 10 years and life in federal prison if convicted of the 10 felonies with which she is charged. She has pleaded not guilty.
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