Witness list including players filed in Fort Worth case over Angels pitcher’s death
A white plastic pen tube and the Venmo records, Google searches and text messages of Tyler Skaggs, a Los Angeles Angels pitcher who died in a Southlake hotel room in 2019, may be displayed this week to a jury at the trial in Fort Worth of a former Angels employee accused of providing the player with a fentanyl-laced oxycodone tablet that authorities allege killed him.
A razor blade also may be among the evidence prosecutors show jurors in U.S. District Court as Eric Kay is tried on conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and distribution of a controlled substance resulting in death and serious bodily injury.
Prosecutors filed exhibit and witness lists on Thursday and an amended witness list on Sunday, adding a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent.
Among the 78 witnesses included on the prospective list are former Angels players Cameron Bedrosian, Christopher “C.J.” Cron, Matthew Harvey, Andrew Heaney, Michael Morin, Blake Parker and Garrett Richards.
Prosecutors had hoped the witness list would remain under seal until the trial concludes. The Los Angeles Times filed a motion opposing the exclusion of some docket entries in the case and a private exchange of the witness list between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Kay’s attorneys.
U.S. District Judge Terry Means ordered prosecutors to file the list publicly on Thursday. Means wrote that he was not persuaded that the jury pool would be irreparably tainted by press accounts of the lists.
“This is especially true given that by the time this order issues and the lists are (again) required to be filed, there will only be at most four days of possible publicity regarding the parties’ proposed witnesses or exhibits before trial commences. While the Court is certainly sympathetic to the government’s arguments about possible pretrial witness embarrassment or intimidation, those arguments appear to be largely speculative.”
Kay, the Angels’ communications director at the time of Skaggs’ death, was charged in July 2020. He is 47 and lives in Orange, California.
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Inside of Skaggs’ hotel room, investigators found pills, including one with the marking M/30. The pill, which resembled a 30-milligram oxycodone tablet, was tested, and it had been laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opiate, according to an affidavit written by DEA agent Geoffrey Lindenberg that was filed with the expectation that it would support the criminal complaint in the case.
Kay allegedly denied knowing whether Skaggs used drugs. He said that the last time he saw Skaggs was at hotel check-in on June 30, but Skaggs’ phone held text messages on June 30 suggesting that Kay stop by his room with pills later that evening.
Kay is accused of regularly dealing the M/30 pills to Skaggs and to others, passing them out at the stadium where they worked. Kay is accused of dealing the drugs from 2017 until July 2019, according to the affidavit.
This story was originally published February 3, 2022 at 10:12 PM.
