Testimony within the wrongful loss of life trial towards the Los Angeles Angels started Wednesday, Oct. 15, with a former staff vp saying he didn’t recall seeing illicit medicine within the residence of a communications staffer who two years later gave pitcher Tyler Skaggs a counterfeit tablet containing fentanyl that led to the ballplayer’s loss of life.
Taking the stand in a Santa Ana courtroom, Tim Mead, a former VP accountable for communications for the Angels, acknowledged that he at instances noticed regarding and erratic habits by Eric Kay, a longtime staff public relations director who later was convicted in reference to Skaggs’ loss of life. However Mead stated he believed the “off” habits was on account of Kay’s struggles with psychological sickness and legally pharmaceuticals, and Mead denied figuring out previous to Skaggs’ loss of life that Kay had been offering Skaggs or different gamers with any illicit medicine.
“I never heard anything about any unlawful drugs,” Mead testified. “The explanation was always prescription medication.”
Mead acknowledged that Kay’s spouse has described Mead and one other Angels staffer coming to the Kay residence after a household intervention on the final day of the Angels season in 2017 and seeing in Kay’s room 60 tablets divided up into baggies of 10 tablets every, some hidden in socks or sneakers. Attorneys for Skaggs’ household have argued that the alleged discovery of the tablets ought to have tipped the membership off that Kay was offering medicine to gamers two years earlier than Skaggs loss of life.
However Mead testified Wednesday that he didn’t recall the main points of his journey to the Kay residence, together with whether or not he noticed any tablets.
“I recall very little of that morning,” Mead stated
“Did he (Kay) tell you that he was dealing drugs or that he gave drugs to Tyler Skaggs?” requested Rusty Hardin, an lawyer representing Skaggs’ household.
“No sir,” Mead answered.
When requested by Hardin whether or not Kay’s spouse would lie about seeing Mead and the opposite Angels worker discovering the tablets in Kay’s room, Mead replied that Kay’s spouse is “honest and straightforward,”
“I’m not saying it didn’t happen,” Mead stated. “I’m saying I have no recollection of that time.”
There appears to be no dispute that Kay offered illicit medicine to Skaggs and 5 different former Angels gamers. However the important thing query for jurors will in the end be whether or not the Angels knew that their worker was distributing medicine to gamers and subsequently have some duty for Skaggs’ loss of life.
FILE – A picture and emblem memorializing former Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs is displayed on the outfield wall in Anaheim, Calif., July 17, 2019. (AP Picture/Kyusung Gong, File)
FILE – Mourners embrace throughout a memorial for Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs on the St. Monica Catholic Church, July 22, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Picture/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
Former Angels worker Eric Kay was discovered responsible in February of 2022 of federal drug distribution and conspiracy prices for offering offering Tyler Skaggs the medicine that led to the pitcher’s overdose loss of life. The Skaggs household has filed a wrongful loss of life swimsuit towards the Angels. (AP Picture/LM Otero)
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FILE – A picture and emblem memorializing former Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs is displayed on the outfield wall in Anaheim, Calif., July 17, 2019. (AP Picture/Kyusung Gong, File)
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Mead stated Kay — whom he described as “outgoing, entertaining, intelligent, witty and quick” — was a devoted worker whose job included serving to facilitate interviews between gamers and media. However, throughout a full day of testimony, Mead additionally recounted a sequence of incidents involving Kay over time he was employment by the staff.
In 2013, Kay was present in obvious misery in a press field throughout a street journey to Yankee Stadium. Mead, with the assistance of Angels touring secretary Tom Taylor, stated he ended up having a staff bus take Kay again to their lodge. Mead testified that he didn’t recall Kay telling Mead and Kay’s spouse that he was taking 5 Vicodins a day
“He was standing against a wall or a door with tears in his eyes,” Mead stated of Kay’s demeanor on the stadium. “Just fear, fear is what I saw. Fear and frightened. Breathing fast. He couldn’t pull it back. He just said to me ‘I can’t stop this, I’m going to lose my job.’ It wasn’t incoherent, it was just fractured.”
On one event, Kay agreed to take a 90 mph pitch to the leg after a participant supplied him $1,000, Mead acknowledged. On one other event, Mead stated he heard Kay had agreed to eat a pimple off somebody’s again, which Mead stated left him feeling “a little disgusted.” At one level, Mead stated he needed to rebuke Kay for having an affair with an intern in one other division.
Nevertheless it was points that Mead attributed to what he believed to be Kay’s prescription drug use — tied to what Kay apparently described as his ADHD, despair and bipolar points — that Mead stated prompted him essentially the most concern. Mead acknowledged he was in common contact with Kay’s spouse, who at one level texted him that Kay “has got some demons he needs to deal with.”
“He (Kay) would just be very open about his mental health situation and conditions,” Mead stated. “He was a superb employee, he was a superb performer. I noticed him bounce again if I used to be to see an off-day… I took him at his phrase for figuring out his situation and the way it was managed.
On Easter Day in 2019, a sweating and erratic Kay — who was allegedly vomiting and dancing along with his shirt off — was taken residence from the stadium and later hospitalized.
“He was a mess,” Mead stated of Kay’s situation on the hospital. “His eyes were half rolled up in his head, he was sweating. It was the worst I had ever seen him.”
“I realized it was a much bigger issue, a much bigger problem going on,” he added.
Hardin, the Skaggs’ household lawyer, repeatedly requested Mead why he didn’t report the problems with Kay — and the obvious indicators of potential drug use — to the Angels HR division. Mead stated he knew Kay was participating in an Worker Help Program meant to get him remedy. And whereas Mead stated he didn’t report the problems with Kay to his higher-ups, he recalled the staff president at one level telling him throughout a fast hallway dialog that he knew Mead was taking good care of the state of affairs with Kay.
“I did, I took care of it,” Mead stated. “Or so I thought.”
In June 2019, Mead left the Angels to take a place on the Baseball Corridor of Fame. Lower than a month later, Skaggs died alone in a lodge room in Southlake, Texas, originally of an Angels street journey of what was later decided to be a deadly mixture of fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol.
Angels’ attorneys allege that the loss of life of Skaggs was a results of the pitcher deciding to combine an estimated 11 to 13 drinks with oxycodone and the counterfeit tablet from Kay the turned out to include fentanyl. They deny that staff leaders knew that Skaggs had a drug drawback or that Kay was offering him with illicit tablets till after the pitchers loss of life.
Kay is serving a greater than 20 12 months sentence in federal jail for his position in Skaggs’ loss of life. He isn’t anticipated to testify in the course of the trial.
Testimony in what is predicted to be a greater than month-long civil trial will resume on Friday morning.
