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The Pasadena Star-News | Fri 10/17 05:01pm PST | Sean Emery
A former Angels vice president testified Friday, Oct. 17, that he was “stunned” to learn that his longtime ballpark employee was tied to the death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs, despite for years being deeply involved in contending with what he believed to be that employee’s prescription drug struggles.
As the first week of testimony in the wrongful death case brought against the Angels by the family of Tyler Skaggs wound to a close, Tim Mead — the club’s former communications chief — was questioned about his relationship with Eric Kay, a longtime team public relations director who worked for Mead and later was convicted of giving Skaggs a counterfeit pill containing fentanyl that led to the ballplayer’s death.
Mead, after a 40-year career with the Angels. left the ballclub to work for the Baseball Hall of Fame about a month before Skaggs was found dead in a Texas hotel room during a road trip.
About two weeks after Skaggs died, Mead received a call from a former employee who told Mead that Kay had admitted being in the room with Skaggs and seeing the pitcher snort drugs prior to his death. Mead testified that he told the employee that they needed to immediately alert Angels President John Carpino and would likely need to talk to law enforcement.
“I was stunned,” Mead testified, adding that before the phone call he was not aware that Skaggs had a drug issue. “It was like hearing something you just don’t anticipate, you don’t believe.”
Attorneys for the Skaggs family, however, allege that Mead was fully aware that Kay was providing opioids to players prior to the pitcher’s death.
In 2017, the family attorneys allege Mead saw 60 pills in packages of 10 pills each within baggies hidden in socks and shoes at Kay’s home. And Mead testified that Kay’s at-times erratic behavior led him to search Kay’s desk at work several times, though he described being relieved to not find any drugs.
But during two days of testimony, Mead repeatedly denied that he was aware that Kay was involved in illegal or illicit narcotics or distributing any pills to players.
Mead said at the time he believed Kay was hooked on medication he had been prescribed to treat depression, ADHD and bipolar disorder.
Numerous text messages over a years-long period between Mead and Kay’s wife in which they discussed Kay’s mental condition and prescriptions made clear that Mead was deeply aware of Kay’s struggles.
“He is somebody I cared about on my staff — we worked together 12 to 14 hours a day,” Mead said. “I looked at him as a father to three kids who was battling demons. He shared it, his family shared it.”
“The good times were real good,” Mead said of Kay, who he described as often being “the life of the party.” “I also saw somebody who understood empathy and sensitivity to other people, particularly with young kids. He was wonderful at that. He had a big heart.”
Kay is currently serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison for his role in Skaggs’ death. Along with Skaggs, Kay provided opioids to five other Angels players.
Mead said he did not recall details of the morning that Kay’s wife apparently says Mead and another Angels employee saw the 60 pills in the Kay residence. But he testified to multiple other incidents of erratic behavior on Kay’s part.
That included an incident in a press box at Yankee Stadium in 2013, when a frightened and fractured Kay had to be brought back to a team hotel, or an incident at the offices at Angel Stadium on Easter Day in 2019 when a sweating and erratic Kay was taken home and then hospitalized. Mead also described incidents he chalked up to bad judgement on Kay’s part, including an affair with an intern in 2018, agreeing to take a 90 mph fastball to the leg for $1,000, agreeing to eat a pimple off somebody’s back in another bet with players and yelling at another intern over a signed baseball.
Following the Easter 2019 incident, Kay took part in outpatient rehab. Mead described Kay appearing “reinvigorated” upon his return.
“He hit the ground running,” Mead said. “He was back where he wanted to be and where we thought he belonged.”
Weeks later, hours before the first game in the Angels’ Texas road trip, Skaggs was found dead, leading to a law enforcement investigation that ended with Kay’s indictment and conviction.
Rusty Hardin, an attorney for the Skaggs’ family, repeatedly pressed Mead on why he never reported Kay’s actions to either the club’s HR department or those above him in the club hierarchy. Hardin asked whether Mead was protecting Kay from what appeared to be violations of the club’s rules against drug or alcohol use, and questioned whether he ever considered that someone addicted to prescription meds eventually wouldn’t get enough pills from their doctor and would have to go to outside sources.
“I took what I thought was a proactive approach to he and his family to get it corrected,” Mead said.
“Can you tell this jury a single corrective measure or punishment that you imposed at any time on Mr. Kay?” Hardin asked.
“No sir,” Mead said.
Earlier in his testimony, Mead explained his approach to dealing with Kay’s issues were also based on his experience with an extended family member who had mood swings due to prescription drugs.
“I just felt I had seen this before,” Mead said.
Asked by Angels’ attorney Todd Theodora what he would have done if he had known that Kay was distributing drugs to players, Mead said he would have “taken care of it — reported it to HR, gone to (Angels President) John Carpino. After learning of Kay’s tie to Skaggs’ death, Mead said he cooperated fully with law enforcement.
“To what extent were you interested in justice being served?” Theodora asked.
“100 percent,” Mead responded.
Messages sent in 2019 showed Kay was using his Angels’ email account to purchase oxycodone from random people online, according to attorneys for the Skaggs family. Skaggs himself introduced opioids to five other players by telling them that Kay could help procure the pills, attorneys for the ball club allege.
Skaggs family attorneys allege that the 27-year-old pitcher died because the team allowed a staffer they knew to be a drug addict and a dealer to travel with the team during a road trip. Attorneys for the ball club counter that Skaggs died because he chose to mix a counterfeit pill Kay gave him that contained fentanyl with oxycodone and an estimated 11 to 13 alcoholic drinks.
Testimony in the trial is scheduled to continue Monday in a Orange County Superior courtroom in Santa Ana.