By SCHUYLER DIXON
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A former Los Angeles Angels worker was convicted Thursday of offering Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs the medication that led to his overdose loss of life in Texas.
Eric Kay was convicted one depend every of drug distribution leading to loss of life and drug conspiracy. He faces as much as life in jail when he's sentenced on June 28.
Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and his mom, Debbie Hetman, hugged as the decision was introduced. Kay took off his jacket and tie and was positioned into handcuffs, nodding towards his household and mates within the courtroom.
A ten-woman, two-man jury revealed the decision after deliberating for not more than three hours following an eight-day trial. Kay was tried in federal court docket in Fort Value, about 15 miles from the place the Angels had been purported to open a four-game sequence towards the Texas Rangers on July 1, 2019, the day Skaggs was discovered lifeless in a suburban Dallas lodge room.
“We’re clearly upset within the verdict. We thought there have been many causes to doubt the federal government’s case,” stated Reagan Wynn, considered one of Kay’s attorneys. “This can be a tragedy all the way in which round. Eric Kay is on the point of do minimal 20 years in a federal penitentiary and it goes up from there. And Tyler Skaggs is gone.”
A coroner’s report stated Skaggs, 27, had choked to loss of life on his vomit, and a poisonous mixture of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was in his system.
“This case is a sober reminder: Fentanyl kills. Anybody who offers fentanyl — whether or not on the streets or out of a world-famous baseball stadium — places his or her consumers in danger. Nobody is immune from this lethal drug,” U.S. Legal professional Chad E. Meacham stated in a press release.
The trial included testimony from 5 main league gamers who stated they acquired oxycodone drugs from Kay at varied occasions from 2017-19, the years Kay was accused of acquiring drugs and giving them to gamers. Kay additionally used medication himself, in line with testimony and court docket paperwork.
Pitcher Matt Harvey, who rose to stardom with the New York Mets almost a decade in the past, stated he knew he was threatening his profession by admitting to cocaine use in New York and California.
Harvey, one of many gamers who stated he acquired oxycodone drugs from Kay but in addition obtained them for Skaggs, stated he was subpoenaed and testified solely as a result of he was granted immunity from prosecution. Harvey is unsigned after pitching for Baltimore final season.
In closing arguments, lead prosecutor Lindsey Beran stated the federal government proved that Kay was the one one who may have given Skaggs the medication that led to his loss of life, that the supply was in Texas and that fentanyl was the reason for loss of life. The federal government argued Kay gave Skaggs counterfeit oxycodone drugs that contained fentanyl.
Beran reminded jurors of the testimony of Harvey and fellow main league pitchers Cam Bedrosian and Blake Parker saying Skaggs’ loss of life scared them away from utilizing oxycodone. Harvey testified the painkiller was generally utilized in a league the place gamers typically face surgical procedures and take care of accidents.
“Blake Parker, ‘I had a flashback to 2017 and I assumed it may have been me,’” Beran instructed the jury, quoting the pitcher. “All of these folks had been one capsule away from dying alone in a lodge room from a drug that Eric Kay gave them.”
Lead protection legal professional Michael Molfetta stated prosecutors didn’t show Kay gave Skaggs the medication after the group landed in Texas on a flight from California, or that fentanyl was the only real trigger.
Molfetta pointed to a white board prosecutors stated made their case. It was full of magnetic tiles displaying textual content messages between Skaggs and Kay, and departure and arrival occasions together with different components from June 30 and July 1.
“These tiles, these items they’ve put up there, they show nothing however what’s on the tiles,” Molfetta stated. “There are such a lot of assumptions behind it.”
Kay served because the group’s public relations contact on many street journeys, and the journey to Texas was his first since getting back from rehab. Kay was positioned on go away shortly after Skaggs’ loss of life and by no means returned to the group. He didn’t testify.
Protection attorneys acknowledged Kay lied to police the day Skaggs was discovered lifeless by saying he hadn’t seen him the earlier night time. One in every of his colleagues on the time, present Angels director of communications Adam Chodzko, stated Kay confided in him a few weeks later that he had been in Skaggs’ lodge room. Chodzko testified that Kay instructed him he didn’t give Skaggs drugs that night time and declined a proposal from Skaggs to do medication within the room.
Carli Skaggs testified she didn’t know the extent of her husband’s drug use, and would have tried to do one thing about it if she had.
Hetman testified her son had points with Percocet, a mixture of oxycodone and acetaminophen, in 2013 however that he stop “chilly turkey” on the time.
Garet Ramos, Skaggs’ stepbrother, testified he couldn’t keep in mind the main points of attempting to assist wean Skaggs off Percocet 9 years in the past and denied deleting textual content messages from his cellphone on the police division in Southlake, the suburb the place Skaggs was discovered lifeless.
The health worker who performed the post-mortem testified there was a “better likelihood” that fentanyl, which is considerably stronger than oxycodone, triggered Skaggs’ loss of life. Dr. Marc Krouse additionally stated there was a “diminished likelihood” that alcohol and oxycodone triggered the loss of life. An knowledgeable for the federal government stated it was a near-certainty fentanyl led to Skaggs’ loss of life.
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