Jurors in the trial of a Major League Baseball executive accused of providing a controlled substance that caused the death of a Los Angeles Angels player in Southlake will likely hear from a witness to whom prosecutors offered immunity in order to testify.
That expected element of evidence was described on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, where a jury of five men and 10 women were selected from a pool of 45 people to hear the drug sales conspiracy case against Eric Kay. The jurors include three alternates.
The potential jurors were asked about their own and relatives' drug use, their experiences as defendants, victims, or witnesses in crimes, and whether they could set aside those experiences as they consider evidence in the Kay case.
In his 15-minute allotted portion of voir dire, defense attorney William Wynn asked the jury pool whether they viewed matters largely as black or white or as black, white and with shades of gray.
He also asked potential jurors if they were serious baseball fans and whether they were familiar with press coverage of the case.
Several jurors said they were familiar with reporting at the time of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs' death, but no one remembered details.
The trial is expected to last seven days, with U.S. District Judge Terry Means allowing 20 hours of evidence presentation from prosecutors and 15 hours from the defense. Opening statements are to begin Tuesday afternoon.
Kay, who has pleaded not guilty, rejected a plea offer in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Beran told Means at a pretrial conference on Monday. She did not describe the terms of the offer.
Skaggs, 27, died in a Southlake hotel room in 2019. Kay is accused of providing the player with a fentanyl-laced oxycodone tablet that authorities allege killed him.
Among the 78 witnesses included on a prospective witness list are former Angels players Cameron Bedrosian, Christopher "C.J." Cron, Matthew Harvey, Andrew Heaney, Michael Morin, Blake Parker and Garrett Richards. Prosecutors had hoped the witness list would remain under seal until the trial concludes. The Los Angeles Times filed a motion opposing the exclusion of some docket entries in the case and a private exchange of the witness list between the U.S. Attorney's Office and Kay's attorneys.
Kay, the Angels' communications director at the time of Skaggs' death, was charged in July 2020. He is 47 and lives in Orange, California.
Inside of Skaggs' hotel room, investigators found pills, including one with the marking M/30. The pill, which resembled a 30-milligram oxycodone tablet, was tested, and it had been laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opiate, according to an affidavit written by DEA agent Geoffrey Lindenberg that was filed with the expectation that it would support the criminal complaint in the case.
Kay allegedly denied knowing whether Skaggs used drugs. He said that the last time he saw Skaggs was at hotel check-in on June 30, but Skaggs' phone held text messages on June 30 suggesting that Kay stop by his room with pills later that evening.
Kay is accused of regularly dealing the M/30 pills to Skaggs and to others, passing them out at the stadium where they worked. He is accused of dealing the drugs from 2017 until July 2019, according to the affidavit.
