Ex-Angels Employee Charged for Giving Fentanyl to Late Pitcher Tyler Skaggs

Eric Kay, a former public-relations employee for the Los Angeles Angels, has been charged with distributing fentanyl in connection with pitcher Tyler Skaggs’ overdose death last year, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Skaggs, 27, was found dead in a Texas hotel room last July, and the Tarrant County medical examiner determined he’d consumed the powerful opioids fentanyl and oxycodone. His cause of death was listed as “alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication with terminal aspiration of gastric contents.” According to an affidavit obtained by the Times, “It was later determined that but for the fentanyl in [Skaggs’] system, [Skaggs] would not have died.”

Kay reportedly told the feds that he’d given Skaggs opioids and had also taken drugs with him for several years. “I just know that attempts to blame any one person for another person’s addiction are extremely naïve,” Kay’s lawyer, Michael Molfetta, said last year.