SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — The ex-wife of a Los Angeles Angels employee on Tuesday said the MLB team failed her drug-addicted husband at a trial over the fatal overdose of one of its star pitchers.
Camela Kay testified that she previously had seen Angels players partying, drinking and passing around pills on the team plane when she traveled with her then-husband Eric, the team's communications director. In 2019, after her husband was hospitalized for
a drug overdose, she heard that he had pills intended for pitcher Tyler Skaggs, and shared the information with the team's traveling secretary.
Less than three months later, Skaggs was dead.
Eric Kay was later sentenced to 22 years in prison for providing the fentanyl-laced pill that led to the fatal overdose.
“I am sitting in a courtroom for two days in front of a mother who lost her son and a widow,” she said, adding that the father of her three children is in prison.
The testimony came during the civil trial for a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ family, contending the Angels should be held responsible for letting Eric Kay keep his job while he was addicted to and dealing drugs. The Angels have said team officials did not know Skaggs was taking drugs and that any drug use involving him and Eric Kay happened on their own time and in the privacy of the player’s hotel room.
Attorneys for the family and the Angels have both said Camela Kay's testimony about the pills is at the heart of the lawsuit.
The trial comes more than six years after Skaggs, then 27, was found dead in the suburban Dallas hotel room where he was staying as the Angels were supposed to open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. A coroner’s report said Skaggs choked to death on his vomit and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.
During Eric Kay's federal criminal trial in Texas, five MLB players testified they received oxycodone from him at various times from 2017 to 2019, the years he was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to Angels players.
Medical records for Kay's 2019 hospitalization indicated he had been battling addiction for a dozen years and had been known to use Norco, oxycodone, antidepressants and marijuana.
Camela Kay said she and other family members had an intervention with Eric in 2017 over concerns about drug use. The next day, she said, two Angels officials came over to speak with him and one pulled plastic baggies containing white pills from the bedroom, which fueled her concerns that he was selling drugs.
In 2019, Eric was driven home by an Angels employee after he was found shirtless and dancing in his office at the stadium, she said. She said she found blue pills among his belongings and called police to press him to go to the hospital, where he stayed for three days before going to rehab. She said her sister-in-law told her after visiting Eric in the hospital the pills were for Skaggs.
She said she later found text messages on Eric's phone about him getting his “candy” at the stadium and relayed the information to his supervisor at the Angels. She said she also saw messages from Skaggs asking about “his candy” and Eric told her while he was in rehab that he had asked his boss to “keep Tyler off his back."
Camela Kay said she was concerned her husband was heading back to work so quickly after a six-week stint in rehab, taking on more responsibilities and traveling to Texas with the team so soon after returning.
During cross-examination, Angels attorney Todd Theodora asked how Camela Kay could know what was going on with her husband’s drug use since she was sleeping in a separate bedroom and keeping her distance from him since 2017. He also asked whether the report about pills headed toward Skaggs came up when Eric was acting erratically, blurting out words, during his overdose.
Camela Kay told jurors she had flown on the team plane multiple times, most recently between 2013 and 2016. She said her husband told her the pills she saw there were Percocet and Xanax.
“They're treated like kings,” she said. “I had seen them passing out pills or drinking alcohol excessively.”
After Skaggs' death, Camela Kay filed for divorce, court records show.
Skaggs had been a regular in the Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and struggled with injuries repeatedly during that time. He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
His family is seeking $118 million in lost earnings, compensation for pain and suffering and punitive damages against the team.
After Skaggs’ death, the MLB reached a deal with the players' association to start testing for opioids and to refer those who test positive to the treatment board.
