Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs died in a hotel room because the ball club allowed an employee they allegedly long knew to be a drug addict and dealer to travel with players on a Texas road trip, attorneys representing Skaggs’ family told an Orange County jury on Tuesday, Oct. 14, as a civil trial began in a wrongful-death case brought against the organization.
Angels’ employees were aware that Eric Kay — at the time a public relations director with the ball club — had been distributing drugs to several players while struggling with his own addiction issues that two months before Skaggs’ death had included Kay’s own stint in outpatient rehab, Skaggs’ family attorney Shawn Holley told jurors during her opening statements in a Santa Ana courtroom.
“Tyler Skaggs died alone in a hotel room in Southlake, Texas,” Holley said. “He died because the Angels, in violation of their own policies, allowed a drug user, a drug addict and a drug dealer to remain employed… they did nothing about it. They buried their heads in the sand over and over again. And as a result, Tyler Skaggs is dead.”
An attorney representing the Angels alleged that Skaggs himself had introduced five other players — Cam Bedrosian, CJ Cron, Matt Harvey, Blake Parker and Mike Morin — to illicit drugs, telling them that Kay could procure the substances.
Skaggs leading up to his death snorted a counterfeit pill containing fentanyl given to him by Kay, along with oxycodone and an estimated 11 to 13 alcoholic drinks in what turned out to be a lethal combination, Angels attorney Todd Theodora told jurors during his own opening statements.
“Angels baseball did not know that Tyler had a drug problem or that Eric Kay was distributing drugs to any player,” Theodora said. “Period. End of story.”
“Tyler Skaggs was playing Russian Roulette that night with drinking that much alcohol and snorting that much illicit pills,” the attorney added. “As sad as it is, as tragic as it is, Tyler was a drug addict.”
The trial — which is scheduled to last more than a month — is expected to focus on whether the Angels knew — or at least should have known – about Skaggs’ drug use and Kay’s actions prior to Skaggs death. The Skaggs family attorneys are seeking hundreds of millions of dollars, which means even a finding of only partial responsibility for the club could have significant financial repercussions.
Among those watching opening statements from the packed courtroom gallery on Tuesday were Arte Moreno, the team’s owner, and Carli Skaggs, Tyler’s widow.
Testimony during the trial — which is expected to include current and former players — is also sure to shine a harsh light on usually hidden aspects of professional baseball culture. Skaggs’ death led to a significant change in Major League Baseball’s drug policy, with players tested for opioids in addition to performance-enhancing drugs.
Kay worked for the ballclub for more than a decade, rising through the ranks to join the communications team, where he worked directly with players in order to help facilitate interviews with the media. That meant ingratiating himself with the players to help them get what they wanted — from restaurant reservations to tee times. But the Skaggs’ family attorneys allege it also meant getting drugs for players who felt they need help weathering the physical challenge of a major league baseball season.
Kay’s own “reckless horseplay” in the club house — which allegedly included “outrageous stunts” like having a pitcher intentionally throw a 90 mph pitch to his leg — led many to conclude that Kay was battling addiction issues, the Skaggs’ family attorney said.
“It was obvious to many players and many in the clubhouse that Eric Kay was regularly high and doing drugs at work,” Holley told jurors.
The family attorney alleged that during a 2013 game at Yankee stadium, Tim Mead — then the Angels vice president in charge of communications — and Tom Taylor — a traveling secretary with the ballclub — had to take Kay back to a hotel after he was found sweating and crying in the back of a press box. The attorney said Kay admitted to being addicted to opioids and Mead promised to get him help, but the help didn’t come.
A year later, the family attorney alleged, Kay showed up to Major League Baseball winter meetings, where team executives were present, under the influence of drugs. By that time, the attorney added, Kay was openly discussing his drug use in texts and emails on his company account. During spring training in 2016, the attorney told jurors, Kay was seen snorting lines of drugs in a kitchen area within the clubhouse, moments before Moreno, the team owner, walked by.
Holley said Kay’s drug use was so out in the open that star player Mike Trout offered to pay for him to go to rehab. An intervention by Kay’s family did not go well, the family attorney said, and Mead and Taylor were called to help. While at Kay’s house, the family attorney alleged, Mead and Taylor found sixty pills divided up into baggies of ten pills each. That packaging, the attorney added, was indicative of selling drugs.
“The Angels now knew — two years before Tyler’s death — that Eric Kay was not only addicted to opioids, but also distributing them,” Holley said, adding that according to texts and Venmo receipts, Kay was dealing drugs to at least six players.
Messages sent in 2019 showed Kay was using his Angels email account to purchase oxycodone from random people online, while traveling with the team during Spring Training, the family attorney told jurors.
On Easter Day in 2019, Mead had to take Kay home from work after Kay was vomiting, sweating and dancing around with his shirt off while seemingly under the influence of drugs, the family’s attorney said. Kay was hospitalized, the attorney said, and when Mead came to visit Kay later, he was told by Kay’s wife that Kay had admitted to having pills for Skaggs and was shown texts indicating that Kay was distributing drugs to Skaggs and other players.
Kay agreed to go to treatment, Holley said, but ended up taking part in an outpatient program before quickly coming back to work. He was not required to take any drug tests and his access to players was not curtailed, the family’s attorney added.
“The Angels, again, did nothing,” Holley said. “They allowed Eric to continue to work closely with players in the clubhouse with no guard rails at all.”
Less than two months later, the club allowed Kay to travel with the team during the trip to Texas, where they were scheduled to play the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. Skaggs died of what was later determined to be a lethal combination of fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol.
Theodora, the Angels’ attorney, said the team believed Kay’s at-times “off” behavior — including the Easter 2019 incident — was the result of medication he was taking for mental health issues. Kay told coworkers that he came from a line of family members with mental issues and that he was bipolar and had “heavy duty” meds.
“His co-workers were very compassionate,” Theodora said. “They always gave him the time off he needed when he went through an episode like this.”
When Kay returned to work weeks before Skaggs death he seemed to be a “new man,” Theodora said. Kay knew that Mead, his longtime boss, was going to leave the team to take a job at the Baseball Hall of Fame, and wanted to move up into Mead’s soon-to-be vacant position.
“They had never seen Eric better,” Theodora said of other Angels’ perception of Kay upon his return. “He had a spring in his step.”
Skaggs — a Woodland Hills native who attended high school in Santa Monica before playing most of his professional career with the Angels — had a breakthrough in 2019 when he pitched at a near All-Star level before his season was derailed by injury. Still, his family’s attorney argued, the 27-year-old pitcher was in the upswing of his career, leading the team in innings pitched and starts.
“He was the ace of the team and he was just getting started,” Holley said.
It wasn’t until after Skaggs’ death — but before the results of his autopsy were known — that the ball club learned of the pitcher’s drug use, Theodora told jurors. After Kay told another employee that he was in Skaggs hotel room and saw him snorting drugs before his death, the team informed law enforcement in Texas, Theodora added.
Kay was later indicted, convicted in federal court of providing drugs to Skaggs and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.
Skaggs’ potential future earnings — which his family’s attorneys estimated at $118 million — would likely play a huge role in any potential damages, should jurors find the ballclub at fault for his death. Skaggs was earning a $3.7 million salary in his final season, and had one more season to go before he could enter free agency.
The first witness in the trial is expected to testify on Wednesday morning, with Mead scheduled to take the stand.