previously denied being aware that Kay was addicted to illicit pills<\/a>. They testified to believing that his sometimes-erratic behavior was related to mental health issues and problems with prescribed medication.<\/p>\nKay previously was convicted of providing Skaggs with a counterfeit pill containing fentanyl that the pitcher ingested along with oxycodone and alcohol, leading to his July 2019 death in a Texas hotel room at the start of a road trip for the Angels. Skaggs\u2019 family, in the ongoing civil lawsuit, allege the Angels knew, or should have known, about Kay distributing drugs to players.<\/p>\n
Camela Kay said she first learned of her husband\u2019s substance abuse issues in 2013, when Mead and Taylor brought him back to a team hotel after he had what appeared to be an anxiety attack in a press box at Yankee Stadium. She recalled her husband admitting, in front of Mead and Taylor, to taking five Vicodin a day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they were surprised just as much as I was,\u201d she said of Taylor and Mead\u2019s reaction. Both men, in their own testimony, denied being part of that conversation.<\/p>\n
The family held an intervention for Kay in October 2017. His wife said he had grown increasingly erratic and disruptive. When he was using, Eric Kay would sweat profusely and randomly \u201cblurt out\u201d statements, she said. The family intervention didn\u2019t go well, the wife testified, and she called Mead and Taylor over to their house the next day to try to talk him into rehab.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden I see Tim (Mead) walk out of our bedroom with baggies of pills,\u201d said Camela Kay, describing six or seven baggies with what appeared to be a half-dozen pills each.<\/p>\n
The wife said she couldn\u2019t get an answer from her husband about why he had the pills in baggies, hidden in shoes. But she had her suspicions.<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowing Eric and his job, his being in the club house with the players, my guess was that he was supplying them,\u201d Camela Kay testified.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe he was selling to make extra money,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Eric Kay looked at Mead as a \u201cfather figure\u201d who was \u201calways looking out for him,\u201d Camela Kay testified. But the ex-wife said that after the intervention and the alleged discovery of the pills, Mead didn\u2019t press Eric Kay to take time off for rehab. Mead testified that he didn\u2019t recall details of the morning when Camela Kay described finding the pills, while Taylor denied that it happened.<\/p>\n
Camela Kay texted repeatedly with Mead about her husband\u2019s condition throughout 2018 and early 2019, according to evidence presented during the trial. She described being suspicious that he was going to work while high on opioids<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you ever think \u2018Today is the day he will get fired?\u2019\u201d Gibson asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Camela Kay answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he ever get fired?<\/p>\n
\u201cNo\u201d<\/p>\n
On Easter Day in 2019, Taylor brought Eric Kay home after he was acting erratically at Angel Stadium. Camela Kay testified that she discovered an Advil bottle filled with blue colored pills that fell out of her husbands pocket next to Taylor\u2019s car. She described showing the pills to Taylor, said she believed she told him they were oxycodone, and added that Taylor showed no reaction.<\/p>\n
Eric Kay\u2019s family brought him to a hospital that night, where his wife said doctors found six different drugs in his system, though she didn\u2019t recall exactly what drugs they were. During the three days Eric Kay spent detoxing at the hospital, Camela Kay said his family gained access to his phone.<\/p>\n
Camela Kay described finding text messages to a mystery number in which Eric Kay asked if that person was at the park and whether he had \u201ccandy.\u201d There were also texts from Tyler Skaggs asking Eric Kay where he was and if he had what Skaggs wanted, Camela Kay said.<\/p>\n
Eric Kay also told his sister, Kelly, that the pills that had fallen out of his pocket in front of his house were for Tyler Skaggs, Camela Kay testified, a conversation that she described relaying to Taylor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it you tell Tom Taylor?\u201d Gibson asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat he (Eric) told Kelly those pills were for Tyler Skaggs,\u201d Camela Kay answered.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow does Tom Taylor respond?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018He blows me off, just changes the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eric Kay spent three days at the hospital detoxing followed by six weeks in outpatient rehab, his ex-wife said. He returned to the Angels on June 3, just as Mead \u2014 who had long run the Angels communications department \u2014 was preparing to leave the team to join the Baseball Hall of Fame. With Mead leaving, Camela Kay said Eric Kay took on many of his duties.<\/p>\n
Just before the Texas road trip, Camela Kay said, Eric Kay bought an $800 cowboy outfit the family couldn\u2019t afford. Jurors were shown a photo of Eric Kay posing in the outfit in front of the team bus. His ex-wife said when she saw the photo she believed he was high on drugs.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust the smirk on his face, the way he is posing, it is not like him,\u201d Camela Kay said.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you believe he (Eric Kay) was fit to return to his job?\u201d Gibson asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Camela Kay answered.<\/p>\n
Weeks after Skaggs\u2019 death, Eric Kay admitted to being in the room with him before his death. Pamela Kay testified that her ex-husband was paid $35,000 in severance for agreeing to leave the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave they (the Angels) offered you any sort of help at all?\u201d Gibson asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Camela Kay answered quietly.<\/p>\n
Asked what kind of father Eric Kay was to their three boys, Camela Kay described him as a provider, but added that Eric was rarely around.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, he has left his family in ruins,\u201d Camela Kay testified.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat role, if any, do you think Angels baseball played in leaving your family in ruins?\u201d Gibson asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot,\u201d the wife replied. \u201cThe could have helped Eric.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attorneys for the Angels deny the team knew that Eric Kay was giving players illicit pills or that Tyler Skaggs was taking illegal drugs. The blame Skaggs\u2019 death on his decision to mix the pill Kay gave him with oxycodone and an estimated 11 to 13 alcoholic drinks.<\/p>\n
During brief questioning by the Angels\u2019 attorney at the end of the day, Camela Kay acknowledged that she did not mention Tyler Skaggs or drug dealing in the more than 200 texts she sent to Mead and Taylor over the years.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you agree with me that from your standpoint, Tim Mead and Tom Taylor did what they could to support Eric and get him healthy?\u201d Angels Attorney Todd Theodora asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey could have done more,\u201d Camela Kay answered.<\/p>\n
She is scheduled to return to the stand Tuesday morning for more questioning by the Angels attorney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Angels\u2019 officials were warned that communications staffer Eric Kay was providing illicit pills to Tyler Skaggs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,8174,1242,21262,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,4,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-402983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-angels","8":"tag-angels","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-angels","15":"tag-laangels","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-angels","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-losangelesangels","20":"tag-mlb","21":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115449181270612322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}