Does Roger Clemens’ personal and/or sexual relationships have any bearing on his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs (or vice versa)? Already, the blogosphere is suggesting that steroids may have caused Clemens’ infidelity. But as far as the legal proceedings are concerned, Yahoo Sports’ Tim Brown doesn’t think his philandering has relevance to his alleged steroid use
In regards to Novitzky’s new job, Dwight Sparlin, a retired I.R.S. manager who led the San Francisco office when the Balco case started nearly six years ago, said he had been hearing for two weeks that Novitzky was going to the F.D.A. to continue focusing on drug cases.
“I think it would give him more exposure to just doing that type of work,” Sparlin said by telephone Tuesday. He added: “For Jeff to go as far as he did in Balco was a stretch for the I.R.S., too. I think he was allowed to go a lot further than he would otherwise because of the impact.”
Jeff Novitsky has been involved in almost every aspect of the BALCO steroid scandal and steroids in baseball investigation.
Matthew Wong is not your average 17-year old high school student. He is an innovative entrepreneur, lacking in his legal education, who used the internet to order raw steroid powder from China to manufacture and distribute anabolic steroids in extracurricular chemistry and marketing experiments. Unlike his high school classmates, Wong has been in jail for the past two weeks socializing with Tarrant County criminals (”Steroid labs in Tarrant area are processing powder bought online,” April 23).
The arrests came after a two-month investigation prompted by a tip, Grapevine police Lt. Todd Dearing said. Matthew Wong, 17, of Grapevine was arrested April 10 on suspicion of possession of controlled substances and dangerous drugs and on suspicion of delivery of controlled substances. The charges range from state jail felonies to second-degree felonies, Dearing said. Wong remained in the Tarrant County Jail on Tuesday with bail set at $26,000.
Police say Wong sold an undercover officer steroids numerous times. According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Wong most recently met the undercover officer on Feb. 21 in a restaurant parking lot, where the officer bought 21.8 grams of Oxymetholone, a strong steroid, and 19.6 grams of testosterone from Wong for $310.
Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have modified a bill that would have added human growth hormone (HGH)Â to the Controlled Substances List. The bill was introduced as a kneejerk reaction to revelations of widespread HGH use in professional baseball. But in the end, legislators avoided making the same mistake with HGH as they did with anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) with the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990. (”HGH bill altered to help children,” April 16)
Cyclist Tammy Thomas has been convicted on three counts of making false statements (perjury) and one count of obstruction of justice. She was acquitted of two counts of perjury (”Cyclist convicted of perjury in BALCO case,” April 4).
Under federal sentencing guidelines, Thomas faces a sentence that likely would range from probation to about two or three years in federal prison for the perjury convictions.
Thomas was specifically accused of lying to the grand jury about using steroids and obtaining performance enhancing drugs from Illinois chemist Patrick Arnold, a key Balco figure who pleaded guilty to manufacturing designer steroids and providing them to elite athletes through the now-defunct Peninsula laboratory.
Tammy Thomas already received a lifetime ban from competitive cycling for doping violations several years. This effectively ended her career as a cyclist. The conviction for perjury in the government’s case against Thomas may have effectively ended the pursuit of a second career as an attorney (”Tammy Thomas found guilty of perjury,” April 4).
“I already had one career taken away from me,” she yelled. “Look me in the eye. You can’t do it.”
Thomas then turned to a prosecutor and shouted, “Look me in the eye …. You like to destroy people’s lives.”
 The government has succeeded in its unstated goal of making an example of an athlete using steroids. Is this justice served?
The jury in cyclist Tammy Thomas’ doping perjury trial did not reach a verdict after the first day of deliberations (”Thomas jury deliberations to continue,” April 3).
Thomas, whose case is the first to go to trial in the five-and-a-half-year Balco investigation, was charged with making false statements to a grand jury in 2003 about substances she is suspected of receiving from Arnold. For the jury to convict Thomas, it must conclude that her statements were false and that they were material to the government’s investigation.
I am certain that Tammy Thomas is anxiously awaiting the verdict. Not only is her freedom in jeopardy but also a future career as an attorney. She has been silent about the case and has not spoken to the media; however, she has been very outspoken in her fashion statements outside the courtroom where she was photographed wearing a San Francisco Giants baseball cap, no doubt in support of other athletes who have been targeted for perjury by this federal investigation.
State Representative Jeff Roorda has introduced legislation to coerce professional sports in the State of Missouri to change their rules by increasing penalties for anabolic steroid use in their respective sports.
Roorda, a Democrat from Jefferson County, filed a bill today that would bar state tax credits from going to professional sports teams in a league that does not place at least a one-year ban on athletes caught using steroids.
That would mean: No state breaks for the Cardinals, as well as the Royals, the Chiefs, the Rams, the Blues, the state’s minor league baseball teams, or pro soccer outfits…
“Since when in baseball is it four strikes and you’re out?” Roorda said in a statement today.
Never mind that in baseball, it is not one strike and you’re out either. Roorda obviously intends to highlight what he believes to be a weak steroid and doping policy in Major League Baseball.
After corresponding with sources involved in the Tammy Thomas doping trial and reading reports from the trial, I am convinced that the likelihood of an acquittal is very high. The government’s case against cyclist Tammy Thomas for perjury is surprisingly weak. The government’s case is largely based on the assertion that Tammy Thomas ingested “anabolic steroids” and/or “controlled substances” and/or “banned substances” obtained from chemist Patrick Arnold and she lied about it.
The inconvenient fact is that tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) and norbolethone were NOT legally classified as “anabolic steroids” until the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 was passed; Norbolethone and THG were two of the 26 compounds added to the Controlled Substances Act with this legislation. Consequently, THG and norbolethone were NOT controlled substances until the passage of the legislation. Furthermore, THG and norbolethone were not on the WADA/IOC banned substances list at the time.
IRS Special Agent Jeff Novitsky testified against cyclist Tammy Thomas at her perjury trial yesterday. Novitsky is a popular (and controversial) figure in the entire steroids in sports investigation. Thus, many observers were interested in his testimony. Reviewing the published accounts of Novitsky’s testimony, I found it particularly interesting how much incriminating evidence federal investigators found in BALCO’s trash.
Novitzky began searching through the trash behind the BALCO offices, learning when the company set garbage out and when it was collected. Each Monday night for a year, he hauled BALCO’s rubbish to a well-lit area nearby and sifted through it, he testified.
He found copies of e-mail messages and copious quantities of empty needle wrappers, he said. The latter led him to a medical-waste company where he found evidence of syringes, vials and performance-enhancing drugs that apparently originated at BALCO.
