SANTA ANA (CNS) – Tim Mead, a former Los Angeles Angels top public relations executive and president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, spent Wednesday in testimony explaining how he handled issues with a staffer convicted of providing a fatal dose of fentanyl to the late Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, making the case that he tried to help him with his mental health issues and not having major concerns about drug abuse or dealing.
Under a day of questioning from attorney Rusty Hardin, who represents the widow and parents of Skaggs, who are suing the baseball team, Mead tried to explain how he handled what he characterized as sporadic episodes of unusual behavior that ultimately led to a hospitalization and a stint in rehabilitation for Eric Kay.
Near the end of a day of testimony, Hardin confronted Mead on whether he was just enabling Kay’s substance abuse issues.
“I can look at it that way now,” Mead acknowledged.
But he said at the time he felt he was trying to help a talented employee deal with being bipolar and occasional issues with his medication. Mead suggested that 95% of the time Kay was a laudable employee, but that sometimes had “off days” where he wasn’t himself.
Hardin again questioned Mead on whether he ended up making things worse for Kay by not holding him accountable.
“In hindsight, yes, sir,” Mead said.
Mead will continue testifying Friday. Team traveling secretary Tom Taylor is expected to testify after Mead.
The plaintiffs are seeking $118 million in future earnings damages, plus punitive damages.
Their attorney Shawn Holley said Tuesday in her opening statement of the trial that the 27-year-old pitcher “died alone in his hotel room” on July 1, 2019, during a road trip to play the Texas Rangers, because the team allowed Kay to remain employed in the public relations department despite behavior “in violation of their own policies” for “dealing drugs to other players” and that team officials “did nothing about it.”
Holley said team executives “buried their heads over and over and over again,” ignoring Kay’s issues.
Kay has been convicted of providing a fatal dose of fentanyl causing death in federal court in Texas and is serving a 22-year prison term.
Mead was questioned Wednesday about an episode Kay had while on a 2013 road game against the New York Yankees.
Mead and Taylor arranged for the team bus to get Kay back to the hotel to be with his family, Mead said. When Hardin asked him if he recalled being told then that Kay had a five-pill-a-day habit, Mead said, “I have no recollection of that, sir.”
Mead said he alerted Erik Abell, a sports psychologist for the team. Holley said Kay that night was seen that night “swaying and crying” and with “fear in his eyes.”
Mead said Kay told him it “was anxiety, panic.”
Kay had a “quirky personality,” his former boss testified.
When Hardin asked if Kay was at times “hyper,” Mead replied, “Every day. That was his personality… He was very active. He was the focus of attention, funny, witty… He was kind of the life of the party.”
Mead said there were often “team building” exercises during spring training with the team, citing how an ostrich was brought in once during an ostrich festival and that the Harlem Globetrotters visited once to do tricks for the team.
But once Kay ate a pimple off a bat for money, and another time took a 90 mph pitch off a machine to his leg for $1,000, Mead said.
Mead took Kay aside and talked to him about the fastball incident, he said.
“I said what would happen if he broke his knee cap? It’s not practical,” Mead said, adding he told Kay it was “bad judgment.”
Kay would complain about his pay, saying he worried about having enough college money for his sons, Mead said.
Mead acknowledged he “noticed heightened change” in Kay from 2017 to 2019.
On his “off days” he would be “sweating or be alone in his office,’ Mead said.
“I just knew he wasn’t feeling good,” Mead said.
Kay would blame it on an issue with his prescription medication, Mead said.
On those “off days,” Kay could be heard kicking his desk in his office once every month or month and a half, Mead said.
Mead also testified how he intervened when Kay had an affair with an intern. Mead said he spoke with the young woman and Kay and told them the relationship was “inappropriate” and that he was “disappointed.”
When Hardin asked Mead if he thought of reporting it to human resources, Mead said, “No, sir. I wanted to take care of it… have it resolved among adults.”
Mead said “There was so much space between” the off days.
“Five percent of Eric could be problematic, but 95% of Eric I wanted working for me,” he testified.
Mead also intervened in a conflict between another intern in April 2019. The woman who was in her 20s came to Mead “in tears” because Kay had shouted at her during a discussion about an autographed ball on his desk, Mead said.
Mead asked the intern to write down what happened and then asked the both of them to meet with him the next day, he said.
“If she wasn’t satisfied I had the letter,” Mead said.
Ultimately, the intern accepted Kay’s apology, they hugged and “that was it,” Mead said.
“It was a situation with three adults,” Mead said. “I think we handled it.”
Hardin continued to press Mead on why he didn’t just follow the team’s policy manual, but Mead said he wanted to try to resolve the issues privately.
Mead acknowledged he searched Kay’s office a few times to rule out whether Kay was using illegal drugs.
“I never crossed my mind Eric Kay was dealing” drugs, Mead said.
“I wasn’t worried, I was curious,” Mead said. “If I found something I would confront him about it… But it was not a consistent concern or suspicion.”
When Kay was hospitalized in 2019, his wife asked Mead about persistent phone calls from someone. Mead had a staffer look into it and they determined who it was and Mead asked the team head of security to get a picture of the man, he testified.
Hardin pressed Mead on whether he knew Kay was a drug addict, confronting him with emails from Kay asking for time off to go to a sobriety meeting. But Mead insisted he thought Kay’s issues were with “mismanagement” of his prescribed medication.
“I didn’t play God,” Mead said when asked about his intervening on Kay’s behalf without involving human resources. “I tried to help an individual… I wasn’t deluged with complaints or concerns about his behavior… I did think I was helping.”
Holley said a team doctor had been prescribing Kay “powerful opioids” for no medically necessary reason. At one point Kay was taking five pills a day, she said.
In 2017, Kay’s drug abuse was `’so out of control his family staged an intervention, which backfired when Kay angrily denied having a problem, Holley said Tuesday.
The next day, Mead and Taylor allegedly attempted to persuade Kay to check into a drug rehabilitation facility and demanded to know where his drug stash was. He allegedly showed them where he hid in his home multiple baggies of the pills stuffed in shoe boxes and elsewhere.
That sort of packaging indicates drug dealing, Holley alleged.
Kay faced no consequences and continued selling narcotic painkillers to several players in the team parking lot and elsewhere, Holley said. The players were not excessively using the drugs, just taking enough to deal with pain, she added.
By January 2019, Kay’s drug abuse was “so flagrant,” human relations officials advised him to see an addictions specialist, Holley said.
In March 2019, Kay was using a work email account to find distributors for oxycodone, Holley said.
That same year he showed up to work one day so high that he was vomiting, sweating and “dancing around without his shirt on,” Holley said. Taylor took him home and Kay’s wife allegedly showed Taylor that he had a bottle of Advil filled with oxycodone.
“She begged the Angels to do something,” Holley said.
Kay was taken to a hospital where doctors found “so many drugs in his system they thought he was suicidal,” Holley said. Kay was allegedly allowed to do outpatient therapy for a couple of days a week and was back to work in five weeks.
Angels attorney Todd Theodora told jurors that Skaggs “was a beloved member of the Angels family… He died due to his reckless decisions to mix (alcohol with drugs)… He did that to get high. Angels Baseball did not kill Tyler Skaggs. Angels Baseball wishes he came forward and told us about his struggles and the team could have helped him.”
Angels officials turned Kay in to authorities when they learned July 18, 2019, that Kay had told his co-worker and supervisors about seeing Skaggs the night he died snorting drugs in his motel room, Theodora said.
Before that Angels officials had never “heard anything remotely similar to this,” Theodora said.
If team officials knew the two were friends and doing drugs they would have put Kay on leave before suspending and firing him, Theodora said.
“The reason Eric Kay was tried and convicted was because Angels Baseball turned him in,” Theodora said.
Skaggs had acceptable therapeutic levels of oxycodone and fentanyl in his system when he died, Theodora said. But he also had a blood-alcohol level of .14, nearly twice the legal limit for driving in California, Theodora said.
According to a defense expert that amounts to 11 to 14 drinks, and when mixed with the depressant drugs it can be deadly, Theodora said. The fentanyl pill Skaggs ingested was a “counterfeit,” meaning it was made in China and Mexico by drug dealers who were not pharmacists or medical experts, the defense attorney said.
Skaggs was warned by his agent to not take the counterfeit pills because they can have deadly levels of fentanyl in them, Theodora said.
Skaggs’ laptop had signs of being used to crush up pills with a hotel card key, and authorities also found a “snorting straw” in his room, Theodora said. Snorting the drugs can provide a faster and more intense high, he explained.
If Skaggs had swallowed the pills instead he would have woken up the next morning, Theodora said.
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