FORT WORTH — The former communications director of the Los Angeles Angels was found guilty Thursday of providing the drugs that killed pitcher Tyler Skaggs in 2019, after a trial that raised questions about the prevalence of opioid use in Major League Baseball.
Kay, who worked as the liaison between the Angels’ players and the reporters who covered them, was found guilty of giving Skaggs a lethal mixture of oxycodone and fentanyl that led to his death in a Southlake, Tex., hotel room. His body was found July 1, 2019. He was 27.
Once the verdicts were read, Skaggs’s mother, Debbie Hetman, slumped and began crying. Kay’s mother, Sandy, also became emotional. “I’m in shock,” she later told a reporter.
Kay faces a minimum sentence of 20 years and could be behind bars for the rest of his life. The defense plans to appeal after his sentencing date, scheduled for June 28.
“I’m sorry, but I have to order you taken into custody,” U.S. District Judge Terry Means said after the verdict was read.
“I understand, your honor,” Kay said.
He was later led to the basement of the federal courthouse, his legs and hands in shackles.
“We are very grateful to the government and the jury for seeing this important case through to the right verdict," the Skaggs family said in a statement. "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.”
The Skaggs family sued the Angels and Kay last year. Their attorney, Rusty Hardin, said Thursday that with a guilty verdict in hand, “We are looking forward to holding the team accountable.”
The Angels, in a statement, called the trial’s testimony “incredibly difficult for our organization to hear, and it is a reminder that too often drug use and addiction are hidden away.” MLB declined to comment.
The jury began deliberating around midday after blistering closing arguments from the prosecution and the defense.
“This case was about one person … Eric Kay,” assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Beran said in her closing argument.
Defense attorney Michael Molfetta told the jury the government had tunnel vision, directed at Kay, based on “assumption” rather than hard evidence. “This case was reverse-engineered: ‘Eric Kay is our guy, and we’re going to get him,’ ” Molfetta said.
On Tuesday, four players, including former all-star pitcher Matt Harvey, testified that they knew Skaggs took opioids, admitted to taking the drugs themselves and that Kay had been their supplier.
It was not “uncommon,” Harvey acknowledged on the witness stand, for other players to take illegal drugs.
What he and several other players described in court — taking drugs on the field, dropping off opiates in the clubhouse, hiding their dependency from the fans who envy their athletic achievements — revealed MLB’s uglier side.
In her closing arguments, Beran noted that some of the players testified that they threw away the drugs they got from Kay, or took only a small amount, after they made them feel bad. When they heard of Skaggs’s death, it sent shock waves.
“All those people were one pill away from dying of the drug that Eric Kay gave them,” the prosecutor said.
She also noted that there was evidence that Kay continued to search for drugs online 10 days after Skaggs overdosed. “Not even Tyler Skaggs’s death stops him,” Beran said.
Molfetta attacked the veracity of Chris Leanos, called by the government during the trial, who said he was a longtime friend of Skaggs’s and an admitted drug dealer. Leanos testified that Skaggs asked him for oxycodone a week or two before his death but that he refused and that he was nowhere near to provide his friend drugs in the hours before his death.
Molfetta suggested otherwise, saying Leanos had time to drive to the Long Beach airport and meet up with Skaggs before the team flew to Texas. He said Leanos’s denial was not believable, considering his criminal history.
Molfetta called Skaggs’s death “tragic” but argued it was not his client’s fault, blaming instead the player’s addiction. “A young man died because of his demons,” he said.
Federal prosecutors argued that Kay had a history of giving opiates to Skaggs and other players and that he gave Skaggs the drugs in the hours before he died, including the fentanyl that they argued was the drug that killed him.
Kay’s defense countered by noting Skaggs was a star athlete, surrounded by friends and fans, and that someone else could have been the supplier. They acknowledged Kay had given Skaggs drugs but that the player had given narcotics to their client as well because they shared a “dark” secret — both were addicts.
The government also maintained Kay knew the blue pills he gave Skaggs could be “counterfeit” oxycodone, laced with fentanyl, and that he knew the dangers involved.
The defense countered by saying Skaggs could have died because of the alcohol and oxycodone found in his body. The defense got the government’s medical experts to say that, while unlikely, it was “possible” Skaggs could have died even without the fentanyl.
Prosecutors used text messages between Kay and Skaggs in an attempt to show Kay was the “only source” for the drugs Skaggs took.
Those messages included texts sent on the afternoon of June 30, 2019, before Skaggs and the rest of the Angels boarded a charter plane to Texas.
Kay texted Skaggs, asking “How many?” Skaggs replied, “Just a few, like 5 … Don’t need many.”
Later, at 11:47 p.m. and now in Texas, Skaggs texted Kay his hotel room number, 469, and said, “Come by.” Three minutes later, Kay texted, “K.”
Skaggs’s wife, Carli, told the jury she was in California that day when she received a text from her husband at 10:02 p.m. Pacific time that said, “Busy day.” She was unable to reach him after that despite her frantic calls and texts.
Throughout the trial, Skaggs’s mother watched, often staring straight ahead as police and medical experts went into detail on what they found in her son’s blood and urine and the drugs discovered in his hotel room.
On the other side of the courtroom sat Kay’s mother, often comforted by her daughter as her son sat flanked by his lawyers, scribbling on a notebook pad.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
