Former Angels employee sentenced to 22 years for supplying drugs in Tyler Skaggs death
FORT WORTH, Texas – Former Angels employee, Eric Kay, has been sentenced to 22 years in federal prison after he was convicted of supplying drugs to pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who died.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Former Angels communications director, Kay, 48, was convicted of providing Skaggs with counterfeit oxycodone pills that were laced with fentanyl.
Kay was convicted in February, according to The Washington Post.
Judge Terry Means sentenced Kay to 22 years, according to CBS Dallas. He did not agree with the minimum of 20 years. Recorded phone calls from prison, as well as emails in which Kay “disparaged the jury, Skaggs, his family and prosecutors,” contributed to the additional two years.
According to the LA Times, the maximum was life in prison in this case.
Prosecutors claimed that Kay provided opioids to Skaggs plus five other baseball players since 2017, according to the LA Times.
According to a news release from the Department of Justice, some of those players were identified as Matt Harvey, C.J. Cron, Mike Morin and Cameron Bedrosian. They testified that Kay was the only source and would “conduct transactions in the Angeles Stadium.”
According to CBS Dallas, the trial included testimony from the five other baseball players who claimed Kay provided the drugs between 2017 and 2019.
Following Skaggs’ death, Kay was placed on leave and never returned to the team, according to CBS Dallas. He was the public relations contact during road trips and the one where Skaggs’ died was apparently his first time going on the road since he returned from rehab.
>> Ex-Angels employee convicted of giving Tyler Skaggs drugs that led to his death
According to the DOJ, Kay denied knowing that Skaggs was a drug user during an interview with law enforcement. He claimed he had seen him at hotel check-in on June 30, the night before. Investigators looked at text messages on Skaggs’ phone that found messages that suggested Kay was going to stop by Skaggs’ room with pills that evening. It was learned later on that Kay had told a colleague that he did visit Skaggs’ room on June 30.
The Drug Enforcement Administration later determined that Kay had regularly dealt blue M/30 pills to Skaggs and others, according to the DOJ.
“The Skaggs family learned the hard way: One fentanyl pill can kill. That’s why our office is committed to holding to account anyone who deals in illicit opioids, whether they operate in back alleyways or world-class stadiums,” U.S. Attorney Chad E. Meacham said following today’s hearing in the news release. “Mr. Skaggs did not deserve to die this way. No one does. We hope this sentence will bring some comfort to his grieving family.”
According to the WashPo, Skaggs, 27, was found dead in a hotel room in Southlake, Texas on July 1, 2019. It was determined that he had oxycodone and fentanyl in his system at the time of his death.
“Today’s sentencing of Eric Kay will not ease the suffering that the Skaggs’ family have experienced since 2019,” said Eduardo A. Chavez, special agent in charge of DEA Dallas in the news release. “What the guilty verdict and sentencing proves is even if you sell only a small number of pills and one of those pills causes the death of an individual, you will be held responsible and sentenced to the fullest extent allowed by our judicial system.”
