Agent's report disputed in Balco case
BONDS, TRACK STAR JONES ALLEGEDLY RECEIVED STEROIDS
Mercury News
A report that is said to name more than 20 athletes, including Giants star Barry Bonds, as receiving steroids from Burlingame's Balco Laboratories has set the stage for a courtroom battle over a federal investigator's allegations.
The Mercury News has learned that the document summarizes an Internal Revenue Service investigator's interview of Balco president Victor Conte Jr. last Sept. 3 during a search of the company.
It claims that Conte volunteered the names of 27 athletes -- among them Bonds and some of the biggest names in track and field. Conte's lawyers now vigorously dispute that account, callling it replete with fabrication. So far, eight of the athletes have tested positive for THG, a designer steroid Conte is accused of distributing.
Though in dispute, the information from the document illustrates how fallout from the case may be especially devastating on the Olympic front because the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency can ban athletes without using drug tests. It needs only the evidence that perhaps has been gathered in the Balco case.
The report is said to list 27 athletes -- including sprinters Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Kelli White and Chryste Gaines and New York Yankees stars Jason Giambi annd Gary Sheffield -- as those who allegedly were given drugs by Conte.
But Conte's lawyers say they will contest the document. ``The coercive nature of that interview as well as the disputed contents of what the agents claim was said in that mysteriously unrecorded statement will be the subject of pretrial motions,'' defense lawyers Robert Holley and Troy Ellerman said in a prepared statement. Holley represents Conte; Ellerman is the lawyer for Balco vice president James J. Valente. Those two were among four Bay Area men indicted on charges of steroid distribution and money-laundering. All four pleaded not guilty.
A litany of allegations
The report has been the apparent source of leaks, identifying Bonds and other baseball players of having received banned drugs, as well as a magazine article's characterization of Conte as having confessed to authorities.
Federal prosecutors and investigators could not be reached Saturday night.
THG is known as ``clear,'' and the testosterone gel is called ``cream.'' THG's legal status under federal law is debatable; it is banned by the Olympics and the NFL. Testosterone, on the other hand, is a controlled substance that requires a prescription and is also banned by most sports governing bodies.
Among the claims made in the report by Internal Revenue Service agent Jeff Novitzky and co-signed by a San Mateo County Narcotics Task Force officer Jon Columbet, Conte is quoted as saying that he supplied athletes with combinations of the previously undetectable steroid THG, testosterone cream and other substances. According to the memorandum, Conte said that:
• Trainer Greg Anderson brought Bonds and several other baseball players to Balco to obtain drugs at the beginning of the 2003 season. The steroids allegedly were given to the Giants slugger in exchange for Bonds' endorsement of Conte's legal supplement, ZMA.
• He provided Jones with steroids that she allegedly received for free because she endorsed ZMA. Conte stopped working with Jones in 2001.
``I have a team behind me that tells me what is going on and prepares me on what might happen,'' Jones told reporters Saturday at the Penn Relays. ``I'm going to let the judicial process do what it has to do. I'm confident my name will be clear in the near future.''
Her representative denied a promotional connection to Conte.
``Marion never had any agreement of any kind to endorse ZMA -- or any product for that matter -- of Victor Conte's or any of his businesses in any way,'' Joseph Burton, Jones' attorney, told the Mercury News.
• He supplied Olympian Tim Montgomery with steroids in 2002 just before Montgomery set the 100-meters world record of 9.78 seconds in Paris.
• East Bay track coach Remi Korchemny, also indicted in the Balco case, had no knowledge of distribution of banned drugs.
The memorandum apparently does not make clear what the athletes knew about the substances they were accepting from Conte. His lawyer has said that Bonds did not knowingly take a banned substance.
THG's history
The report lists 15 track and field athletes, seven NFL players and five baseball players as having been supplied with either THG, testosterone cream or both. It apparently does not say if any of them used the substances.
Many of the athletes named testified last year before a grand jury investigating Balco. So far, no athletes have been charged.
Sports officials discovered THG only after a track and field coach anonymously sent a syringe filled with the drug to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in June. Don Catlin of the UCLA Olympic drug testing laboratory devised a test for it. Officials retested samples taken at the U.S. national track championships at Stanford last June and found four positive results for THG. But others who competed at the nationals and were named in the report, such as Montgomery, White and Gaines, did not test positive. Jones, 28, took last season off to have a baby with her boyfriend, Montgomery.
Federal investigators earlier this month seized urine samples of several baseball players from a Las Vegas laboratory and reportedly intend to test them for the designer steroid.
Conte's lawyers contend that the interview was conducted under intimidating circumstances in a back office at Balco while dozens of flak-jacket-clad police and federal officers, with guns drawn, searched the company. Squad cars and local broadcast television trucks filled the company parking lot, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.
Addressing the the claims that Conte gave up his clients, Holley and Ellerman said in a statement: ``Mr. Conte adamantly denies any discussion with any agent concerning the steroid use of any specific track-and-field athlete or baseball player. It is fabrication.''
Regarding Anderson, Bonds' trainer, the lawyers said, ``It is Mr. Conte's adamant contention that he told the agents that he had no knowledge of Anderson's relationships with any specific baseball players regarding steroids. Again, fabrication.''
Said Harvey Steinberg, Romanowski's attorney: ``Reports are notoriously inaccurate. They are relying on the statements of individuals who in most cases have a reason to fabricate. Unless and until there is concrete evidence, I would suggest that it is inappropriate to leak this type of information. It creates distrust in the system and impacts the chance for someone to get a fair trail.''
Holley said he could not rebut every specific allegation for legal reasons as he prepares to challenge the government's case in a trial expected to begin in late summer or fall. But he warned that the interviews were not recorded.
``The government comes in on this kind of an investigation with 25 or more agents, they come in with scientists, with helicopters, guns and flak jackets, but they somehow forget to bring a tape recorder,'' Holley said. ``So that any statements which are made or any comments which are made or not made, they are able to put their own spin on it.''
Conte, Anderson, Korchemny and Valente were indicted on 42 counts of distributing steroids and other prohibited substances to athletes from December 2001 through September 2003.
They are alleged to have furnished athletes with THG, testosterone cream, human growth hormone, the blood-boosting drug EPO and modafinil. The charges involving THG are for mislabeling and misusing prescription medicine, because the Food and Drug Administration considers THG an unapproved drug -- not a controlled substance.
The indictments in February were announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft -- a sign of how important the Justice Department considers the case. But so far federal investigators have said little publiccly.
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