Tangled Webs (63 page)

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Authors: James B. Stewart

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #Law, #Ethics & Professional Responsibility

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After announcing his resignation, Ryan told
USA Today
that the BALCO investigation would continue. “When I leave, this won’t just fall off the map. The infrastructure is in place. We have good prosecutors on it. A good review process. Good institutional knowledge. So when I move on, there are those that can carry forward with it without a problem.”
But many wondered. Witnesses kept showing up at the grand jury, including Giants trainer Stan Conte and others from the Giants’ staff, but the press had largely abandoned staking out the federal building. As Bonds approached Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record, the case receded into the background.
And then Bonds had done it, hitting number 756 on August 7, setting off fireworks and a citywide celebration. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, under fire for dragging his heels on confronting steroid use in professional baseball, called Bonds to congratulate him. So did President Bush, despite the concerns about steroid use he expressed in his State of the Union address. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom gave Bonds the keys to the city.
 
 
I
n the following weeks Bonds added six more home runs and finished the 2007 season with a record career total of 762. On November 15, 2007, a month after Jones’s guilty plea, two months after his record-shattering home run, and nearly four years after testifying before the grand jury, the Justice Department issued a short press release:
A federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Barry Lamar Bonds, age forty-three, of Beverly Hills, California, with four counts of perjury, and one count of obstruction of justice.
Bonds is charged with knowingly and willfully making false material statements, regarding his use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances, while under oath during his testimony before the federal grand jury that was conducting the investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (“BALCO”), and with obstructing justice in the same investigation.
 
Specifically, the indictment charged that Bonds had given “false” and “evasive and misleading” testimony to the grand jury when he answered:
“Not that I know of,” when asked if he had ever taken steroids;
“No” and “No, I wasn’t at all,” when asked if he had taken steroids during the weeks before November 2000, when a blood test showed high levels of testosterone;
“Not at all,” when asked if he was taking steroids in December 2001, when a urine test was positive for two steroids;
“No,” when asked if he was taking flaxseed oil or the “cream” or any other steroid in January 2001;
“No, no,” when asked if anyone other than his personal physician, such as Anderson, had ever injected him;
“Right,” when asked to confirm that Anderson had never given him anything to be taken by injection;
“No,” when asked if Anderson had ever given him human growth hormone, and “No,” when asked if Anderson had given him either human growth hormone or testosterone;
“Not that I recall,” when asked if he had gotten anything other than vitamins and proteins from Anderson during 2001, when a calendar with the initials “BB” indicated he was taking a full regimen of performance-enhancing drugs.
 
Hours after Bonds’s indictment, Greg Anderson was released from a federal prison in Dublin, California. He’d been there just over a year while the grand jury deliberated. Now that it had finished its work and indicted Bonds without Anderson’s testimony, there was no reason to keep him in jail. Of course, his predicament was far from resolved. He’d likely be subpoenaed again if and when Bonds came to trial. Then the ordeal would start again. But for now he was free.
As Anderson walked out, other inmates gave him a standing ovation. Paula Canny, a longtime friend and one of his lawyers, picked him up and took him to dinner at the Black Angus, a nearby steak house. Anderson said nothing to waiting reporters, but Canny told the
New York Daily News
, “In America the only thing worse than being a cheat is being a snitch. He’s never going to say anything–not because of Barry but because of Greg.”
Bonds entered a not-guilty plea on December 8. A horde of fans applauded as he emerged from the courthouse, with many clutching baseballs for him to autograph. “I love you, Barry,” shouted one man.
 
 
T
revor Graham’s trial began on May 19, 2008, delayed in part by the resignation of Zeszotarski, his lawyer, who said Graham wasn’t paying his bills. He was replaced by a court-appointed lawyer, William Keane, who alternately portrayed Graham as a courageous whistle-blower for sending in the syringe, and the government’s star witness, Angel Heredia, as a manipulative, scheming, drug-dealing liar who would do anything the government wanted to avoid prosecution and protect his immigration status.
Even so, the government’s case seemed overwhelming and was widely seen as a preview of the Bonds trial. Novitzky was a key witness, and he held up well on cross-examination. The government had the photo of Graham with Heredia in Laredo, seemingly proof that Graham had lied when he said he never met him. There were the phone records showing over a hundred calls between Graham and Heredia during the period Graham said they’d never spoken. Prosecutors Matt Parrella (who had also handled the Jones case) and Jeff Finigan played the tapes of Graham that Heredia had recorded.
Five major athletes, among them sprinters Antonio Pettigrew, Jerome Young, and Dennis Mitchell–all Olympic gold medalists–testified in detail that while working with Graham he had encouraged them to use banned steroids, introduced them to Heredia, and then monitored their drug use and the results. Mitchell testified that Graham himself had injected him with illegal drugs on two occasions.
In his closing argument, even Graham’s lawyer, Keane, had conceded that Graham had indeed met Heredia in Laredo, but said he had simply “misspoken” rather than lied when he denied doing so. He argued that that none of Graham’s alleged lies were material to the investigation. The athletes were falsely trying to blame Graham, make him a scapegoat, to minimize their own culpability. He renewed his attack on Heredia, saying he was a “publicity hound” who “says he’s got a book agent.” When he claimed to have stopped dealing in steroids in 2004, but wouldn’t answer Rogers’s question about whether he was still dealing in 2006, he was obviously lying. “Clearly, he is still dealing drugs,” Keane said.
Suspicion of government authority runs deep in the San Francisco jury pool, and Keane’s argument that the government was relying on an admitted drug dealer troubled several jurors. Still, as instructed, they put aside their feelings about Heredia and concentrated on the evidence. They voted overwhelmingly–but not unanimously–for conviction on all three counts. One juror, who worked for the post office, pronounced Graham “guilty as hell.”
There was unanimous agreement about the phone calls. But Frank Stapleton, the foreman, a fifty-nine-year-old owner of an art supply business, refused to convict Graham on the other two counts. Despite the photograph showing Graham and Heredia together, he argued that Graham’s denial they’d ever met was a slip, not a deliberate lie. He thought Heredia was a liar about everything, and the other athletes all had some kind of grudge against Graham, and were also lying. But Stapleton was mostly offended that it was Graham on trial rather than Heredia. “To me, Angel Heredia was the evildoer,” he says. “They should have gone after him instead of Trevor Graham. He seemed like a good guy, a working guy, and his wife took time off to be with him. But they chose to go after him.”
Stapleton concedes that strictly speaking, Graham may well have been guilty. “In a court of law, you’re asked to make judgments based on the law. I went beyond the parameters,” he acknowledges.
Others jurors were furious with Stapleton, and one bluntly called him an “asshole.” But he wouldn’t budge. After four days the jurors told Judge Illston that they could only agree on one count, of lying about the telephone calls. It was a remarkable verdict under the circumstances, a triumph for Keane and Graham and a setback for the prosecutors.
Immediately after the verdict, Judge Illston came into the room where the jurors were still assembled. “I just want to thank you all for your service,” she said. “But how in God’s name did this happen?”
“We didn’t have anything to do with this,” several protested, pointing to Stapleton.
“I just didn’t think this was fair,” Stapleton told the judge. “Why did they bring this guy to trial? This is a guy that works for a living. I think our government did the wrong thing.”
Afterward, Stapleton distributed a statement making his sentiments clear:
On this case and speaking only for myself I will say that the government was bound and determined to make an example of the defendant. To achieve their goal they felt it necessary to do a deal with a true devil, an untruthful drug dealer and illegal immigrant who is walking the streets of America, free and presumably still plying his trade with impunity.
I hope this verdict satisfies the Justice Department’s lust for blood in this matter and that there will be no retrial. When deciding what to do I hope they consider that while the facts in this case are very similar to those in the Scooter Libby trial, Mr. Graham cannot count on the president of the United States to commute his sentence.
 
 
 
V
ictor Conte finished his four months in prison and four months of home confinement in 2006. The
Contra Costa Times
called his sentence “the wrist slap heard far and wide.” Conte painted over the BALCO signs after the curiosity seekers and tourists showed up, with some bodybuilders posing for photographs with their shirts off. He closed the business and moved to another location, where he runs SNAC, an acronym for Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning. Conte wrote a book,
BALCO: The Straight Dope on Steroids, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones and What We Can Do to Save Sports
. It was scheduled for publication in February 2009 but was withdrawn by the publisher because, Conte says, no company would provide libel insurance.
Conte sounds almost disappointed that he hasn’t been called as a witness in any of the BALCO trials. “They’re afraid of me,” he says, referring to both the government and the defense lawyers. “I’m too unpredictable.” He avidly follows every development in the investigation, and remains convinced that he was a victim of government leaks and that Novitzky lied about what he said after the BALCO raid. Still, he says there’s no point in dwelling on the past, and he’s trying to put the case behind him.
Conte say he feels he did what he could to rid sports of illegal drugs, and now uses his considerable expertise about nutrition and fitness only toward lawful ends. He is again training elite athletes, focusing now on professional boxing. He has been working with Nonito Donaire, the world bantamweight champion, and was on hand when Doniare won the title against Wladimir Sidorenko in December 2010.
Jim Valente finished his period of home detention and works for a telecommunications company in Silicon Valley. He is listed as a witness in the Bonds trial, and will testify that Anderson provided him with blood and urine samples for a number of athletes, including Bonds, according to the government witness list.
Troy Ellerman served sixteen months in prison after having his sentence reduced for attending a substance-abuse program. As required by his sentence, he began giving lectures to law students. Hastings College of Law professor John Diamond said Ellerman told students that “in the heat of litigation or the heat of battle one can be tempted to cross the line.” According to Diamond, he was “totally apologetic. He thought his conduct was indefensible.” Ellerman and his wife returned to Sacramento. He and Larry McCormack, who works for a security firm in Stockton, California, have had no further contact.
Chronicle
reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams have never discussed their relationship with Ellerman or confirmed that he was their source. They and the
Chronicle
have been honored with the George Polk Award, the White House Correspondents’ Association’s Edgar A. Poe Award, and the Edward Willis Scripps Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment. Both left the
Chronicle
, Fainaru-Wada for ESPN and Williams for the Center for Investigative Reporting.
Special agent Jeff Novitzky left the IRS in 2008 and joined the FDA, where he has continued to pursue illegal steroid cases. His highest-profile target appears to be Lance Armstrong, the celebrated seven-time Tour de France cycling champion and cancer survivor who has repeatedly denied using any performance-enhancing drugs. A grand jury in Los Angeles is investigating drug use in professional cycling. Novitzky is scheduled to be a witness at Bonds’s trial, and will testify about the BALCO raid, according to the government. He will also describe how Bonds’s “false statements in the grand jury influenced the criminal investigation of Conte and Anderson.”
Unlike Conte or Marion Jones, Trevor Graham never admitted guilt or expressed any remorse. He had also put the government through a full trial. As prosecutors argued, “When confronted with questions about his involvement in doping elite athletes–and with the protection of immunity that he demanded from his statements–the defendant repeatedly lied to investigators in a premeditated and calculating way. . . . Instead of supporting the athletes he coached and encouraged to dope, he called them liars and forced many of them to testify at a public trial. To this day, the defendant absolutely refuses to take any responsibility for what he did.”

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