SANTA ANA, Calif. — The ex-wife of a Los Angeles Angels employee at the center of the overdose death of one of the team’s star pitchers will face more cross examination Tuesday after testifying she saw players and clubhouse attendants passing pills and alcohol while partying on the team plane. <\/p>\n
Camela Kay told jurors in a Southern California courtroom on Monday she had traveled on the Angels team plane with her then-husband Eric Kay, who was convicted of providing drugs that led to the 2019 death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs. She said she had seen players partying, playing card games, gambling and drinking. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re treated like kings,\u201d Camela Kay said of her observations on the plane. \u201cI had seen them passing out pills or drinking alcohol excessively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The testimony came in a trial for a wrongful-death lawsuit<\/a> filed by Skaggs\u2019 family contending the Angels should be held responsible for letting Eric Kay, then the team’s communications director, stay on the job and access players 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 activity involving him and Eric Kay happened on their own time and in the privacy of the player\u2019s hotel room.<\/p>\n Camela Kay testified she told an Angels employee that her then-husband may have been intending to sell drugs to Skaggs on at least one occasion. That was based on information Eric Kay told his sister during a hospital stay for a drug overdose, she said. Camela Kay said the sister then told her, and she told an Angels employee.<\/p>\n Defense attorneys for the Angels began their cross examination of Camela Kay on Monday and questioned her direct knowledge of Eric Kay\u2019s interactions with Skaggs.<\/p>\n Camela Kay said she was concerned that her then-husband had a drug problem after observing his erratic behavior, and family members mounted an intervention with him in 2017. The next day, she said, two team officials came over to speak with him and one of them pulled a series of plastic baggies containing white pills from the bedroom, which fueled her concerns that Eric Kay was not only struggling with substance abuse but selling drugs to make money.<\/p>\n \u201cHim being in the clubhouse with the players, my guess would be he is supplying to them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Camela Kay also described how her then-husband was driven home by an Angels employee after he was dancing in his office, shirtless, at the stadium in 2019. After he got home, she found a bottle with blue pills inside and called police to press him to go to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed an overdose involving six different drugs, she said. <\/p>\n He was hospitalized for three days and then went to rehab, which was communicated in text messages between Camela Kay and team officials shown to jurors.<\/p>\n She said her sister-in-law told her after visiting Eric Kay in the hospital that he told her the pills were for Skaggs. She said she found text messages on his phone about him getting his \u201ccandy\u201d at the stadium and relayed the information about both to Angels officials.<\/p>\n She said she was concerned about Eric Kay heading on the road with the Angels after completing a six-week stint in rehab, adding he was still acting erratic and she suspected he was abusing a drug meant to treat opioid addiction. <\/p>\n After Skaggs’ death, Camela Kay filed for divorce, according to Orange County court records. <\/p>\n The trial comes more than six years after Skaggs, then 27, was found dead<\/a> 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\u2019s report said Skaggs choked to death on his vomit and a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.<\/p>\n