Eric Kay’s attorney files motion to postpone trial connected to Tyler Skaggs’ death
An attorney for Eric Kay, the former Angels employee charged in connection with the overdose death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs, filed a motion Friday to postpone the trial because of the time needed to review the large amount of evidence turned over by the government.
The trial had been scheduled to start April 19 in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas. The motion, unopposed by the prosecution, requested proceedings be delayed until at least Aug. 2.
“Denial of the requested continuance will almost assuredly result in a miscarriage of justice because [we] … are unable to fully review and analyze the discovery produced by the government and also conduct necessary independent investigation into matters raised in the discovery under the current schedule,” William Reagan Wynn, the Texas-based attorney for Kay, wrote in the motion.
Last month, the government gave the defense 185 gigabytes of email archive files and 24,000 pages of “law enforcement records, expert reports, financial records, telephone records, and other records obtained via grand jury subpoena.” The motion said an additional 100 pages of records were provided to the defense Thursday.
A federal grand jury in Texas has indicted former Angels employee Eric Kay on two counts in the overdose death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
Wynn wrote in the motion that “it will be necessary to expend a significant amount of additional professional time and effort fully reviewing and analyzing the discovery materials” in addition to interviewing and retaining forensic toxicologists to potentially serve as expert witnesses.
Skaggs was found dead July 1, 2019, in his hotel room in Southlake, Texas, before the Angels were scheduled to start a series against the Texas Rangers. The Tarrant County medical examiner listed the cause of death as “alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone intoxication” that led to him choking on his vomit.
Investigators found a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl in Skaggs’ hotel room.
“It was later determined that but for the fentanyl in [Skaggs’] system, [he] would not have died,” Geoffrey Lindenberg, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent, wrote in an affidavit.
Last fall, a grand jury indicted Kay, who worked as the team’s communications director, on charges of distributing the fentanyl that led to Skaggs’ death and conspiring to “possess with the intent to distribute” the drug “beginning in or before 2017.” Kay has pleaded not guilty.
The trial was first scheduled for December before being pushed to April after Wynn contracted the novel coronavirus.
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