merkin
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Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
SAN FRANCISCO -- The names and urine samples of about 100 Major League Baseball players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs three years ago can be used by government investigators in their probe of steroids in sports, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The government's perjury case against Barry Bonds could be bolstered if the slugger's name is among those who tested positive. The San Francisco Giants slugger has been the target of a perjury investigation since he testified before a grand jury that he didn't knowingly ingest performance enhancing drugs.
Investigators seized computer files containing the test results in 2004 during raids on labs involved in the Major League Baseball testing program the previous year.
The samples had been collected by the league in 2003 as part of a survey to gauge the prevalence of steroid use. Baseball players were told the results would be confidential, and each player was assigned a code number to be matched with his name.
Quest Diagnostics of Teterboro, N.J., one of the largest drug-testing firms in the nation, analyzed more than 1,400 urine samples from players that season. Comprehensive Drug Testing, of Long Beach, coordinated the collection of specimens and compiled the data.
The testing was part of baseball's effort to determine whether a stricter drug-testing policy was needed. When more than 5 percent of tests for steroids came back positive, the league adopted a stricter plan the following season.
Subpoenas were issued to both companies in late 2003, a day before the test results were to be destroyed, and in April 2004 Internal Revenue Service agents seized the test results and samples. It's unclear whether the data seized includes test results or specimens from Bonds.
Bonds has always maintained he never tested positive for illegal drug use, but federal investigators demanded to see the 2003 test results for Bonds and nine other players. When they raided the testing labs for those 10 results, investigators also seized computer files containing the test results of nearly 100 other players not named in the governments subpoena and warrants.
The Major League Baseball Players Union protested the seizure as a violation of the players' constitutional rights.
Michael Weiner, general counsel for the Major League Baseball Players Union, declined to immediately comment, wanting first to review the decision.
The government's investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a now-defunct Burlingame supplements lab at the center of the steroid scandal, has also already netted guilty pleas from BALCO president Victor Conte, Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson, BALCO vice president James Valente, chemist Patrick Arnold and track coach Remi Korchemny.
Anderson is currently in prison for refusing to testify in the perjury probe of Bonds. He was previously convicted of steroids distribution.
original here
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"...the best evaluation of players is subjective judgment...The real baseball world is inevitably going to be hundreds of times more complicated than the model that we construct...." -Bill James
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12/27/2006, 2:17 pm
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chefjuan
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Re: Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
I want to why Sammy Sosa, Jason Grimlsy and Rafael Palmeiro names are not mentioned in this article. Slammin Sammy may not be in baseball anymore, but he still stood in front of congress and said he hadn't used PEDs. Raffy said it and then tested positive. Yet all they talk about is Barry's indictment. I would think that people would start to be suspicious of this.
Beyond all of that, I think the Feds are really overstepping their boundries. This an investigation into an entertainment enterprise. It's basically the Quiz Show scandal but with higher paid players! I don't think they should be using subpoena powers and holding people in contempt over a perjury case for an individual entertainer. The people involved in the Valerie Plame case had an easier time than Anderson and the Chron writers and that was a case of national security. I just think the priorities are far, far out of wack.
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"If the Pilgrims had landed in California the East Coast would still be wilderness"
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12/27/2006, 4:41 pm
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Bhaakon
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Re: Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
Barry's mentioned because he's the only only one likely to be persecuted.
The feds probably won't waste their time on steroids use indictments, the infamy of releasing the names would probably be worse than the legal punishments, but perjury is another matter entirely.
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12/27/2006, 4:53 pm
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jobu needsarefill
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Re: Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
quote:
Bhaakon wrote:
Barry's mentioned because he's the only only one likely to be persecuted.
Kev, I think you mean " . . . likely to prosecuted."
Bonds is already one of the most persecuted figures in the history of professional sports.
As someone one said, just sayin'.
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"The preacher says all my sins is warshed away, includin' that Piggly Wiggly I knocked over in Yazoo." -- Delmar O'Donnell
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12/27/2006, 5:47 pm
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FATALFART
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Re: Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
come on barry isnt that dumb
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12/27/2006, 7:43 pm
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Halftooth
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Registered: 11-2006
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Re: Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
Wasn't Bonds taking "The Clear" at that point, so if that's the case, I don't think that a test was developed for that derivitive of Nandrolone at that point, so unless they had a "B" sample and tested that seperately, I don't think he should come out as one of the ones that tested positive.
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12/27/2006, 10:49 pm
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FATALFART
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Re: Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
they've had these test results for 2 years, if he tested positive it would of came out a long time ago.
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12/28/2006, 4:13 am
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Freshbreaker
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Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
And where were these tests kept for the past 4 years and who had access to them?
Novitzky has stooped pretty low to get Bonds, I am not so sure he as an investigator is fully trustworthy when askiing for 4 year old samples.
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Travis Ishikawa is NOT a competent first baseman.
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12/28/2006, 6:54 am
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donkekus
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Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
Well, Bonds never said he didn't take steroids he said he never knowingly took them. So, not only would the perjury case rest on a positive test but some sort of evidence that proves he took it knowingly. The former may be easy, but the latter may be impossible...
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12/28/2006, 10:59 am
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Feisty
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Feds may use drug testing data from 2003
If they really want to know whether or not Bonds knowingly took steroids, why don't they just make him take a lie detector test?
Is this saga ever going to end?
Last edited by Feisty, 12/28/2006, 5:38 pm
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12/28/2006, 5:37 pm
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