Ex-Angels employee sentenced to prison for supplying drugs in Tyler Skaggs overdose death

Former Angels communications director Eric Kay was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison Tuesday following becoming convicted of supplying counterfeit oxycodone capsules laced with fentanyl that led to the overdose dying of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Terry R. Signifies adopted an investigation and trial that introduced Big League Baseball encounter to facial area with the country’s opioid epidemic. Kay, 48, faced a necessary minimum of 20 yrs in federal prison and a utmost of everyday living.

Prosecutors alleged Kay furnished opioids to Skaggs and at minimum 5 other expert baseball gamers since 2017. Various gamers testified during the demo about acquiring and making use of illicit oxycodone pills, named “blues” or “blue boys” simply because of their color.

Skaggs was identified useless in his hotel area in Southlake, Texas, on July 1, 2019, just before the Angels have been scheduled to get started a sequence in opposition to the Texas Rangers. Kay instructed police he hadn’t observed Skaggs considering the fact that the staff checked into the hotel the evening ahead of and did not know if the 27-12 months-old utilized prescription drugs other than cannabis.

But textual content messages amongst Skaggs and Kay hrs before the pitcher died advised a distinctive story.

“Hoe [sic] lots of?” Kay texted Skaggs on June 30, 2019.

“Just a several like 5,” Skaggs responded.

After the Angels arrived in Texas, Skaggs texted Kay his space range and “Come by.”

“K,” Kay responded.

Geoffrey Lindenberg, the Drug Enforcement Administration distinctive agent who signed the affidavit in assist of the felony complaint towards Kay, wrote, “I think [Skaggs] and Kay ended up speaking about medications, especially in this circumstance, blue 3-milligram oxycodone drugs.”

Lindenberg additional: “It was later identified that but for the fentanyl in [Skaggs’] method, [Skaggs] would not have died.”

The autopsy uncovered Skaggs died from “alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication” main to choking on his personal vomit.

Kay, who experienced labored for the Angels since 1996, was arrested and billed in August 2020.

Even though Kay didn’t acquire the stand throughout his demo in February, some others mentioned his many years-long struggle with opioid use — including allegedly trying to receive the tablets through an on line auction website 10 times just after Skaggs died — when Skaggs’ mom, Debbie Hetman, testified that her son admitted to an “issue” with working with the opioid Percocet in 2013.

The jury debated a lot less than an hour and a fifty percent ahead of getting Kay guilty of offering Skaggs the counterfeit oxycodone products that resulted in his dying and conspiring “to have with the intent to distribute” oxycodone and fentanyl.

Kay has been incarcerated at the Federal Clinical Center in Fort Worth considering the fact that the verdict. His sentencing was at first scheduled for June 28, but was delayed just after his Texas-based legal professional, William Reagan Wynn, was suspended from practicing regulation in relationship with an unrelated scenario and his other lawyer, Michael Molfetta of Newport Seashore, abruptly withdrew from the case.

A joint movement filed in May possibly referred to a “claim created by defendant’s mother to Probation related to her recording of Mr. Molfetta.” Through a hearing that month, Molfetta claimed the recording was made illegally, but didn’t offer you even further facts and hasn’t commented.

The legal fallout from Skaggs’ deadly overdose contains wrongful dying lawsuits filed by the pitcher’s family members in Texas and California that have been consolidated in Orange County Top-quality Court docket.

No a person else is acknowledged to have have been charged in link with Skaggs’ demise. For the duration of the trial, prosecutors consistently referred to an Orange County female with a prolonged legal file who allegedly sold Kay the pills that killed Skaggs and Hector Vazquez, a former lower-stage Angels worker, who they mentioned connected Kay to the lady.