A federal decide in Texas rejected Eric Kay’s request for a brand new trial Tuesday, greater than two months after a jury discovered the previous Angels communications director responsible of offering counterfeit oxycodone tablets that led to the overdose loss of life of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.
In a one-paragraph order filed in U.S. District Courtroom in Fort Value, Choose Terry R. Means wrote that he was denying Kay’s movement “for the explanations urged by the federal government.”
After Kay’s authorized crew filed a movement final month for a judgment of acquittal and a brand new trial, prosecutors mentioned the transfer had “no reasoned foundation” and failed to indicate “prejudice, not to mention the type of miscarriage of justice that will warrant a brand new trial.”
“For nearly two weeks, the jury heard how Kay dealt medicine to quite a few members of the Angels’ group, how he delivered fentanyl to [Skaggs] at a lodge ... and the way that fentanyl killed that younger man together with his boots nonetheless on his ft,” the prosecutors wrote of their response. “All of that proof supported the jury’s responsible verdict, and it precludes the most recent in an extended collection of maneuvers designed to flee duty for his crimes.”
Prosecutors alleged Kay distributed opioids to not less than six Main League Baseball gamers along with Skaggs throughout a two-year interval, lied to police investigating the pitcher’s loss of life, and tried to acquire opioids by a web-based public sale website, OfferUp, 10 days later.
The jury deliberated lower than 90 minutes in mid-February earlier than discovering Kay responsible of giving Skaggs counterfeit oxycodone tablets laced with fentanyl that resulted in his loss of life in a Texas lodge room on July 1, 2019, and conspiring since not less than 2017 “to own with the intent to distribute” each opioids.
Kay, who faces a minimal of 20 years in jail, is being held on the Federal Medical Middle in Fort Value. He's scheduled to be sentenced June 28.
Michael Molfetta, certainly one of Kay’s attorneys, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday.
The protection movement for a brand new trial argued “there was no proof from which any rational juror might conclude the Authorities had confirmed past an inexpensive doubt that ‘however for’ the ingestion of a substance delivered by the Defendant, Tyler Skaggs wouldn't have died” and that the decide didn’t correctly instruct the jury.
“Lastly, Kay asks for a brand new trial on the bottom that the proof was too skinny to maintain his convictions,” the prosecutors wrote of their response. “That argument defies the truth of quite a few witnesses who admitted that Kay was their drug vendor and the sturdy proof that Kay delivered the fentanyl to [Skaggs] that will finally spell the younger pitcher’s demise.”
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