FORT WORTH, Texas — An opiate addict and dealer operating in the bowels of Angel Stadium, where he worked handling press inquiries, provided to a starting pitcher a fentanyl-laced pill that led him to aspirate vomit and die during a road trip to Texas in 2019, a jury in Fort Worth found on Thursday.
Tyler Skaggs, hiding his own use of oxycodone from relatives, died facedown with his legs hanging off a bed at a Southlake Hilton hotel where he and 66 other Los Angeles Angels players and other employees stayed the night before a series with the Rangers was to begin.
After hearing evidence and argument over eight days and deliberating for about 90 minutes, the jury in U.S. District Court found Eric Kay guilty of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death and serious bodily injury.
Deputy U.S. marshals stood by as Kay, who is 47, removed his necktie. A deputy marshal handcuffed Kay and took him into custody.
Senior U.S. District Judge Terry Means will on June 28 sentence Kay to between 20 years and life in prison.
In his closing argument, Kay defense attorney Michael Molfetta said that prosecutors had asked jurors to make assumptions about Kay’s involvement in Skaggs’ death and that federal law enforcement authorities pursued Kay because they wanted to take action on a fentanyl case in which a professional athlete died.
There was no compelling evidence that Kay gave Skaggs, who was 27, a pill containing fentanyl that the U.S. Attorney’s Office alleged killed him, and the cause of Skaggs’ death was not certain, Molfetta argued.
“This case was reverse-engineered,” he said. Prosecutors, Molfetta said, determined that “Eric Kay is the guy, and we’re going to get him.”
In her summation argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Beran reminded jurors of testimony from Skaggs’ Angels teammates who said they had received oxycodone pills from Kay, and of a text message that Skaggs sent to Kay on June 30, 2019.
“469. Come up,” Skaggs wrote, referring to his hotel room number.
Prosecutors used text messages, telephone records, hotel electronic key entry logs, maps and photographs of the hotel room to explain their case. The displayed tiles on which information from testimony was typed to build a timeline for the jury.
Four current or former Major League Baseball players took the witness stand and testified that they received illicit oxycodone pills from Kay.
Matt Harvey, a pitcher who is a free agent, said that on June 30, 2019, the day before Skaggs died, he learned at the ballpark that he would not be flying that night with his Angels teammates to Texas from Anaheim for series with the Rangers and Astros.
Disappointed with the travel decision, Harvey avoided other players, whose spirits were higher.
Harvey said that Kay, the director of the Angels communications department, left an oxycodone pill at his locker.
Harvey testified that his displeasure about not making the Texas trip later cooled, and he decided not to take the pill.
The next day he learned that Skaggs was dead.
“I threw the pill away,” Harvey testified.
Harvey testified that he and Skaggs previously ingested oxycodone at Angel Stadium and that, separately, Harvey has used cocaine.
After Skaggs died, Harvey took a flight to Texas and spoke with Kay, who told him that they should stay “together during this time,” Harvey testified.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office offered Harvey immunity from prosecution in exchange for his truthful testimony.
Colorado Rockies first baseman C.J. Cron testified that he received small blue pills from Kay on perhaps eight occasions.
Former Angels pitchers Cam Bedrosian and Michael Morin also testified that they received pills from Kay.
Kay did not testify.
After Skaggs’ body was found, Angels players and other employees gathered in a ballroom, and Southlake police officers asked them to describe what they knew.
Molfetta acknowledged to the jury that Kay lied when he told police that he had not seen Skaggs after they arrived at the hotel.
“This case is a sobering reminder: Fentanyl kills. Anyone who deals fentanyl — whether on the streets or out of a world-famous baseball stadium — puts his or her buyers at risk,” Northern Texas District U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham wrote in a statement. “No one is immune from this deadly drug. A beloved pitcher, Tyler Skaggs was struck down in the midst of an ascendant career. The Justice Department is proud to hold his dealer accountable for his family and friends’ unimaginable loss.”
Reagan Wynn, another of Kay’s attorneys, said that he was obviously disappointed with the verdict, and that the case was without a winner because his client would be confined to a federal penitentiary and Skaggs was dead.
Skaggs’ widow described in testimony her frustration in trying to get a response from her husband once he was in Southlake. He was usually quick to respond to her text messages.
“My husband wasn’t responding to my texts because he was dead,” Carli Skaggs testified.
About two weeks after Skaggs’ death, Kay shared with another press department employee an account of the hours before his body was found by an Angels security guard. Kay had been traveling with the team.
“He said he had something he needed to tell me,” Adam Chodzko testified.
On a car ride, Kay said that Skaggs had sent a text message to invite Kay to come to his room at the Hilton hotel in Southlake. Kay first declined, then went, he told Chodzko.
Skaggs had three lines of opiates on a hotel menu, Kay told Chodzko.
“He said he watched Tyler do the three lines,” Chodzko testified.
A forensic pathologist who performed an autopsy in the case testified that Skaggs’ death was caused by a mixture of three substances that led Skaggs to aspirate, but stopped short of concluding definitively that Skaggs would have survived had he not ingested fentanyl.
Had Skaggs consumed only alcohol and oxycodone, the other elements of his mixed intoxication, there was “reduced probability” that he would have died, but it “can’t be eliminated,” Dr. Marc Krouse testified.
The cause of death assessment came from Krouse, but the physician noted that the conclusion was reviewed by a critical case review panel of other forensic pathologists in the office that, Krouse testified, agreed with the autopsy report’s finding.
Kay rejected a plea offer, Beran told Means at a pretrial conference. She did not describe its terms.
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Staff writer David Silva Ramirez contributed to this report.
