A federal judge sentenced former Angels communications director Eric Kay for his role in the death of former Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs on Tuesday in Fort Worth, Texas. A jury initially found Kay guilty on two counts of drug distribution resulting in death and drug conspiracy in February.
U.S. district judge Terry Means, who presided over the sentencing, said he went beyond the 20-year minimum due to comments Kay made about Skaggs while he was in prison.
“I hope people realize what a piece of s--- he was. … Well he’s dead, so f--- him,” Kay said on a tape that was played in the courtroom, via The Washington Post’s Gus Garcia-Roberts.
While Means first thought a 20-year minimum sentence was too much, hearing those comments led him to believe Kay showed a “refusal to accept responsibility and even be remorseful for something you caused.”
After Kay was found guilty, Skaggs’s family released a statement of gratitude toward the jury.
“We are very grateful to the government and the jury for seeing this important case through to the right verdict,” the statement said. “Tyler was the light of our family. He is gone, and nothing can ever bring him back. We are relieved that justice was served, although today is a painful reminder of the worst day in the life of our family.”
Skaggs was found dead in a hotel room in 2019. It was determined he died as a result of choking on his own vomit while under the influence of three substances: alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone.
On Feb. 9, during Kay’s trial, Kay’s defense attorney Reagan Wynn said former Angels pitcher Matt Harvey gave Skaggs one of three pills, two blue and one pink, that he ingested in front of Kay the night he died. According to Wynn, Skaggs told Kay the pink pill was “Percocets I got from Harvey.”
Coroners didn’t find Percocet in Skaggs’s system, and investigators later determined that the pink pills in Skaggs’s room were “legitimately manufactured five-milligram oxycodone pills that did not contain fentanyl.”
MLB gave Harvey a 60-day suspension in May for violating the joint drug program.
