{"id":10349,"date":"2025-10-17T21:41:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:41:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/10349\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T21:41:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:41:30","slug":"in-trial-testimony-former-angels-vp-denies-knowing-staffer-was-providing-illicit-drugs-to-players-the-mercury-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/10349\/","title":{"rendered":"In trial testimony, former Angels\u2019 VP denies knowing staffer was providing illicit drugs to players \u2013 The Mercury News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Testimony in the wrongful death trial against the Los Angeles Angels<\/a> began Wednesday, Oct. 15, with a former team vice president saying he didn\u2019t recall seeing illicit drugs in the home of a communications staffer who two years later gave pitcher Tyler Skaggs a counterfeit pill containing fentanyl that led to the ballplayer\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Taking the stand in a Santa Ana courtroom, Tim Mead, a former VP in charge of\u00a0 communications for the Angels, acknowledged that he at times saw concerning and erratic behavior by Eric Kay, a longtime team public relations director who later was convicted in connection with Skaggs\u2019 death. But Mead said he believed the \u201coff\u201d behavior was due to Kay\u2019s struggles with mental illness and legally prescribed drugs, and Mead denied knowing prior to Skaggs\u2019 death that Kay had been providing Skaggs or other players with any illicit drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never heard anything about any unlawful drugs,\u201d Mead testified. \u201cThe explanation was always prescription medication.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mead acknowledged that Kay\u2019s wife has described Mead and another Angels staffer coming to the Kay home after a family intervention on the last day of the Angels season in 2017 and seeing in Kay\u2019s room 60 pills divided up into baggies of 10 pills each, some hidden in socks or shoes. Attorneys for Skaggs\u2019 family have argued that the alleged discovery of the pills should have tipped the club off that Kay was providing drugs to players two years before Skaggs death.<\/p>\n

But Mead testified Wednesday that he did not recall the details of his trip to the Kay home, including whether he saw any pills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI recall very little of that morning,\u201d Mead said<\/p>\n

\u201cDid he (Kay) tell you that he was dealing drugs or that he gave drugs to Tyler Skaggs?\u201d asked Rusty Hardin, an attorney representing Skaggs\u2019 family.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo sir,\u201d Mead answered.<\/p>\n

When asked by Hardin whether Kay\u2019s wife would lie about seeing Mead and the other Angels employee finding the pills in Kay\u2019s room, Mead replied that Kay\u2019s wife is \u201chonest and straightforward,\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying it didn\u2019t happen,\u201d Mead said. \u201cI\u2019m saying I have no recollection of that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

There seems to be no dispute that Kay provided illicit drugs to Skaggs and five other former Angels players. But the key question for jurors will ultimately be whether the Angels knew that their employee was distributing drugs to players and therefore have some responsibility for Skaggs\u2019 death.<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE \u2013 An image and logo memorializing former Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs is displayed on the outfield wall in Anaheim, Calif., July 17, 2019. (AP Photo\/Kyusung Gong, File)\n<\/p>\n

\"FILE<\/p>\n

FILE \u2013 Mourners embrace during a memorial for Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs at the St. Monica Catholic Church, July 22, 2019, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo\/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)\n<\/p>\n

\"Former<\/p>\n

Former Angels employee Eric Kay was found guilty in February of 2022 of federal drug distribution and conspiracy charges for providing providing Tyler Skaggs the drugs that led to the pitcher\u2019s overdose death. The Skaggs family has filed a wrongful death suit against the Angels. (AP Photo\/LM Otero)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 3<\/p>\n

FILE \u2013 An image and logo memorializing former Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs is displayed on the outfield wall in Anaheim, Calif., July 17, 2019. (AP Photo\/Kyusung Gong, File)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

Mead said Kay \u2014 whom he described as \u201coutgoing, entertaining, intelligent, witty and quick\u201d \u2014 was a dedicated employee whose job included helping facilitate interviews between players and media. But, during a full day of testimony, Mead also recounted a series of incidents involving Kay over the years he was employment by the team.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Kay was found in apparent distress in a press box during a road trip to Yankee Stadium. Mead, with the help of Angels traveling secretary Tom Taylor, said he ended up having a team bus take Kay back to their hotel. Mead testified that he didn\u2019t recall Kay telling Mead and Kay\u2019s wife that he was taking five Vicodins a day<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was standing against a wall or a door with tears in his eyes,\u201d Mead said of Kay\u2019s demeanor at the stadium. \u201cJust fear, fear is what I saw. Fear and frightened. Breathing fast. He couldn\u2019t pull it back. He just said to me \u2018I can\u2019t stop this, I\u2019m going to lose my job.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t incoherent, it was just fractured.\u201d<\/p>\n

On one occasion, Kay agreed to take a 90 mph pitch to the leg after a player offered him $1,000, Mead acknowledged. On another occasion, Mead said he heard Kay had agreed to eat a pimple off someone\u2019s back, which Mead said left him feeling \u201ca little disgusted.\u201d At one point, Mead said he had to rebuke Kay for having an affair with an intern in another department.<\/p>\n

But it was issues that Mead attributed to what he believed to be Kay\u2019s prescription drug use \u2014 tied to what Kay apparently described as his ADHD, depression and bipolar issues \u2014 that Mead said caused him the most concern. Mead acknowledged he was in regular contact with Kay\u2019s wife, who at one point texted him that Kay \u201chas got some demons he needs to deal with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Kay) would just be very open about his mental health situation and conditions,\u201d Mead said. \u201cHe was a good worker, he was a good performer. I saw him bounce back if I was to see an off-day\u2026 I took him at his word for knowing his condition and how it was managed.<\/p>\n

On Easter Day in 2019, a sweating and erratic Kay \u2014 who was allegedly vomiting and dancing with his shirt off \u2014 was taken home from the stadium and later hospitalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a mess,\u201d Mead said of Kay\u2019s condition at the hospital. \u201cHis eyes were half rolled up in his head, he was sweating. It was the worst I had ever seen him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized it was a much bigger issue, a much bigger problem going on,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Hardin, the Skaggs\u2019 family attorney, repeatedly asked Mead why he didn\u2019t report the issues with Kay \u2014 and the apparent signs of potential drug use \u2014 to the Angels HR department. Mead said he knew Kay was taking part in an Employee Assistance Program meant to get him treatment. And while Mead said he didn\u2019t report the issues with Kay to his higher-ups, he recalled the team president at one point telling him during a quick hallway conversation that he knew Mead was taking care of the situation with Kay.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did, I took care of it,\u201d Mead said. \u201cOr so I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

In June 2019, Mead left the Angels to take a position at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Less than a month later, Skaggs died alone in a hotel room in Southlake, Texas, at the beginning of an Angels road trip of what was later determined to be a lethal combination of fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the Skaggs family allege that messages sent in 2019 show Kay was using his Angels work email account to purchase oxycodone from random people online. Attorneys for the ballclub counter that it was Skaggs who introduced other players to opioids, telling them that Kay could procure the illicit pills.<\/p>\n

Angels\u2019 attorneys allege that the death of Skaggs was a result of the pitcher deciding to mix an estimated 11 to 13 drinks with oxycodone and the counterfeit pill from Kay the turned out to contain fentanyl. They deny that team leaders knew that Skaggs had a drug problem or that Kay was providing him with illicit pills until after the pitchers death.<\/p>\n

Kay is serving a more than 20 year sentence in federal prison<\/a> for his role in Skaggs\u2019 death. He is not expected to testify during the trial.<\/p>\n

Testimony in what is expected to be a more than month-long civil trial will resume on Friday morning.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 16, 2025 at 5:25 AM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Testimony in the wrongful death trial against the Los Angeles Angels began Wednesday, Oct. 15, with a former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2780,163,165,164,2135,7,8,723,138,2781,181,1016,1334,1338,100,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-10349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-addiction","9":"tag-anaheim","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-baseball","13":"tag-california","14":"tag-california-news","15":"tag-crime","16":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","17":"tag-drugs","18":"tag-latest-headlines","19":"tag-lawsuits","20":"tag-mlb","21":"tag-morning-wire","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}