SANTA ANA, Calif. — The Angels began the final week of testimony in the Tyler Skaggs wrongful death lawsuit by once again questioning the plaintiffs regarding Skaggs’ drug use.
Skaggs’ widow, Carli Skaggs, and his mother, Debbie Hetman, both took the stand, and were questioned about the contents of Tyler’s phone that showed messages and pictures relating to drug use. The Angels are hoping to show that Skaggs’ previous drug use wasn’t limited to a brief period in 2013, and that he used drugs recreationally.
Tyler died on July 1, 2019, after ingesting a fentanyl-laced pill provided by ex-Angels communications director Eric Kay. Kay is serving a 22-year federal prison sentence, and the Skaggs family has sued the Angels.
Testimony in this months-long civil trial is expected to be completed this week. The Angels hope to call several expert witnesses, along with Angels team president John Carpino and chief financial officer Molly Jolly, if there’s time to do so. Closing arguments are expected to begin on Dec. 15, with deliberations extending throughout that week.
With Carli back on the stand for a third time during these proceedings, Angels attorney Stephen Ladsous showed her a video of the couple’s wedding day, taken just moments before Tyler walked down the aisle. The video depicted Tyler greeting his groomsmen with a bag full of small fireball bottles. He takes a shot, then says, “in it goes, light work,” before swallowing a pill.
Carli would later say on direct examination that she believed the pill to be a breath mint — and that others in the video had said in their respective depositions that it was a breath mint. She said it made sense, since she wouldn’t have wanted to kiss him after he took a fireball shot.
Ladsous had numerous questions about the couple’s wedding night, including if she believed her husband was high on marijuana. Ladsous also showed Carli a text message Tyler had sent to his groomsmen the morning after his wedding, in which he said, “I blacked hard.”
“Is blacking out at one’s wedding appropriate behavior?” Ladsous asked Carli, who said she did not believe her husband had blacked out, and noted, “He deserved to enjoy himself at his wedding.”
Carli was also shown a text message that she sent Tyler from the morning of his death — hours after he passed. He was unresponsive to Carli’s text messages, and she texted her husband, “You have a drinking problem.”
Carli acknowledged she was upset at the time and testified that she did not believe he ever had an alcohol abuse problem. “It was me saying something I didn’t mean,” she later testified on direct examination.
Similarly, Ladsous showed Carli a series of text messages from February 2016, in which she accused Tyler of lying about his spending habits. She threatened to leave him in the text message and said “you lie so nonchalant its crazy.”
Ladsous had prefaced this line of questioning by noting that part of the Angels’ case was to show that Tyler had concealed pertinent information about his drug use. Carli acknowledged she was overreacting in those text messages, said she never intended to leave him and stated her belief they would have remained together “forever.”
Lastly, Ladsous asked Carli if she had deleted text messages that she was supposed to hand over as part of discovery. He said that there were several exchanges they’d received from other witnesses that were not part of what she provided. Carli denied deleting any messages.
The Angels recalled Hetman to question her about her son’s drug use — specifically relating to the time period before and after he’d recovered from his Percocet addiction in September 2013.
Ladsous showed her a January 2013 text message sent by Tyler to his friend, Cody Safron, where Tyler asked, “What did u do with that pill I gave you,” before he then suggested he might snort the pill.
The Angels lawyer then presented a series of pictures sent or received from Tyler’s phone in the months after he’d recovered from his Percocet addiction. The pictures showed Tyler with glassy eyes, appearing to be intoxicated. In one image, he was holding a shot glass.
Debbie noted that there was reason to believe some of the photos had been taken long before being texted, specifically citing a text message that said, “I remember that pic.” She also said she had no issue with her adult son drinking at the time, just so long as he wasn’t abusing Percocet.
“If he wants to hang out with his friends, so long as he’s staying clean and off Percocet, and not drinking and driving and getting overindulged, I’m good,” Hetman said.
Lastly, Ladsous pressed Hetman on her communications with Tyler’s childhood friend, Christopher Leanos. Leanos received immunity at Kay’s 2022 criminal trial, where he testified to being a drug source for Skaggs. The Angels have said they’re unable to locate him to serve a subpoena, and even alleged in their questioning of Hetman that he could have been the source of the deadly fentanyl pill.
Hetman acknowledged calling Leanos after Tyler died, saying that, at the time, they were still looking for answers as to what happened. She also helped connect Leanos with an investigator for the law firm representing the plaintiffs.
On a brief direct examination by Angels attorney Daniel Dutko, Hetman was questioned about the criminal trial, in which Leanos was asked about being a potential source of the fentanyl by Kay’s attorneys. The jury ultimately found that Kay provided the pill.
To end the day, the Angels played back-to-back video depositions from two ex-teammates of Skaggs. The first was of former Angels pitcher Cam Bedrosian, who acknowledged receiving pills from both Kay and Tyler Skaggs.
He said that he was initially introduced to pills by Skaggs on either a team bus or team plane, likely in 2017. Skaggs had overheard Bedrosian complaining about his inability to sleep, and Skaggs offered him a pill. Skaggs eventually introduced him to Kay as a potential source of pills.
Bedrosian testified that the pills Kay gave him were stronger than the ones that Skaggs gave him, and that he was unsure if the pills Skaggs gave him were opioids. He said he only purchased pills from Kay once, not enjoying how strong they were.
Lastly, the Angels played the video deposition of Eric Smith, a former Arizona Diamondbacks farmhand. Smith was suspended in 2013 for abusing Oxycodone, and was eventually required to undergo a 30-day rehabilitation program before the 2014 season.
He testified that Skaggs would take Oxycodone pills recreationally as early as 2011. That’s notable, as the Angels hope to show that Skaggs wasn’t solely using opiates to deal with the pain of pitching. Smith testified that Skaggs would snort the pills.
Through Smith, they showed a text exchange between Skaggs and ex-big leaguer Mike Olt. Skaggs wrote to Olt in 2011, “Yo what’s good its Skaggs I know Smitty (Eric Smith) texted but I ran out of pain pills you know anyone with them.”
Olt said he couldn’t help, other than to offer a drug called Celebrex — an anti-inflammatory pain medicine that’s not as potent as a painkiller — which Skaggs said he already had. He followed up to see if Olt had any access to “painkillers.” The Athletic has reached out to Olt for comment and will update the story if he responds.
On Tuesday, the Angels plan to play a video deposition of ex-Angels pitcher Matt Harvey, and briefly call Kay’s sister, Kelly Miller, as well as an expert.
The Skaggs side will play a quick but important deposition of an investigator from the case, who testified that Kay told her ex-Angels VP Tim Mead was aware of Kay’s dynamic with Skaggs. Mead denied such knowledge in his testimony.