He used to be one of the most sought-after athletic coaches in the US. Now, Trevor Graham is banned from participating in any event sanctioned by several sports organizations – the US Olympic Committee,

International Association of Athletics Federation, USA Track and Field, and other groups affiliated with the World Anti-Doping Agency program.

On Tuesday, the former coach received the lifetime ban from the US Anti-Doping Agency for his participation in providing his athletes with steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

“While drug use by athletes is a serious wrong to be addressed with stiff penalties, involvement in doping by a coach is even more reprehensible and must be dealt with through the most severe of all sanctions,” USADA CEO Travis Tygart said in a statement. “It is truly disgraceful when a coach uses his position to assist athletes under his care in doping.”

Graham is currently awaiting his sentencing in connection with his conviction of one count lying to federal investigators about his relationship to a steroid dealer. The steroid dealer, Angel “Memo” Heredia, has turned into prosecutor’s witness, who testified that he supplied steroids to several athletes through Graham. Heredia’s testimony led to the conviction of Graham in May. Graham is appealing his conviction.

Several of the athletes Trevor had trained included track superstars Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin, and Tim Montgomery.
Marion Jones is currently serving her six-month prison term for lying to authorities investigating her use of steroids. In October 2007, Jones admitted that she had used steroids before the Sydney Summer Olympics. Prior to her admission, she had continually and publicly denied her use of these banned substances.

Tags: Justin Gatlin, lifetime ban, Marion Jones, Nagel Heredia, steroids, Tim Montgomery, Trevor Graham, US Olympic Committee

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Olympics, Steroids in Sports

What now for Trevor Graham?

The once admired track coach is now facing an insurmountable obstacle – a prison term. He was found guilty last month of one count of lying to federal investigators about his relationship with steroid dealer turned prosecution’s witness Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on two other counts because at least one juror had doubts about the star witness’ credibility.

Prosecutors, who can retry the Graham on the other two charges, had no comment on their next move. Graham’s attorney William Keane said he is hoping the government would not retry Graham.

“The jury obviously had problems with the government’s case on the other two counts, including the allegations that Mr. Graham instigated and facilitated the use by a few of his athletes of performance-enhancing drugs supplied by Angel Heredia,” Keane said. “As we maintained all along we did not believe that the government could prove that case. It simply was not true.”

Graham sentencing hearing is set on September 5 before US District Judge Susan Illston. The maximum penalty for Graham’s guilty verdict on one count of perjury is five years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. However, he is expected to receive much less than that.

Graham has consistently denied his relationship with Heredia – a Laredo, Texas, discus thrower who testified that he bought steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in Mexico and sold them to many star track athletes who trained under Graham.

Heredia narrated for the jury in U.S. District Court in San Francisco his business dealings with Trevor Graham. He said their association began in 1996 when Graham wanted a reliable supplier of steroids and PEDs. Graham, according to Heredia, also wanted someone to teach him the tricks of the trade, including how to beat steroid screening. He said he taught the Graham many things, including about clearance times of steroids and what kinds of drugs were undetectable that would boost performance.

Tags: Angel Heredia, PEDs, steroids, Trevor Graham

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in NFL, Steroids in Sports

First, it was the sentencing of David Jacobs on May 1. This former Plano bodybuilder was slapped with three year’s probation and a monetary fine of $25,000 for conspiring to possess with intent to distribute anabolic steroids. Two other co-conspirators were sentenced along Jacobs. The other four co-defendants are still awaiting their sentencing.

Jacobs was the ring leader of the Texas-based steroid distribution network. Based on his confession, he had supplied anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to NFL players. He said he sold steroids and human growth hormone directly to NFL offensive lineman Matt Lehr and another NPL player. The players, in turn, supplied said compounds to a handful of NFL players.

Then the trial of controversial track coach Trevor Graham. Graham was found guilty of lying to federal authorities regarding his relationship with Heredia, a self-confessed steroid dealer and user. Heredia has testified that he had supplied Graham performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids, to the latter’s Sprint Capitol track team. During the trial, several names were mentioned by Heredia. Heredia said he provided steroids and other banned substances directly or through Graham to high-profile athletes, such as Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, and Antonio Pettigrew.

Major League Baseball has also been rocked by steroid scandals. Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire’s careers have been tainted by use of steroids and other banned substances.

What are steroids and why is their use so rampant in sports?

Steroids are synthetic substances similar to the male sex hormone testosterone. They do have legitimate medical uses; they are used in treatment of diverse conditions such as anemia, HIV-related symptoms, and hypogonadism. The term steroids, however, became a household term because of their use as physique- and performance-enhancing drugs.
There are many studies and anecdotal reports that steroids are capable of boosting both the physique and performance of an athlete. Pettigrew, for example, in his testimony in the trial of his former coach has acknowledged that once he started taking banned substances, he was able to run 400 meters in the 43-second range for the first time. “I was running incredible times as I was preparing for track meets,” he said. “I was able to recover faster.”

Tags: Antonio Pettigrew, Major League Baseball, NFL, Sprint Capitol track team, steroid use in sports, steroids, Trevor Graham

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in NFL, Steroids in Sports

The jury announced a guilty verdict in the trial of former elite track coach Trevor Graham. Graham is the latest add-on in the score card of steroid prosecutors stemming from the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative steroid investigation.

The jury convicted Graham of only one count out of the three charges against him. The jury reached a deadlock on the two other charges because, according to reports, at least one juror was reportedly had doubts about the credibility of the prosecution’s star witness, Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia.

Graham was found guilty of lying to federal authorities regarding his relationship with Heredia, a self-confessed steroid dealer and user. Heredia has testified that he had supplied Graham steroids and other banned substances to be used by his track trainees.

The decision was lauded by some groups in competitive sports. “This verdict is another example of how the cooperation between law enforcement authorities and anti-doping agencies is allowing us to get at this problem in a deeper way,” U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel said. “This verdict also underscores the importance for athletes to make good decisions in choosing who to work with.”

Graham did not testify in his trial; however, some members of his former roster of track stars did, including Olympic gold winner Antonio Pettigrew. Due to his public admission of steroid use, Pettigrew has been left with no choice but to give up his gold medal he won at 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics. Marion Jones, another athlete who trained under Graham, has been stripped of the medals she won dating back to September 2000. This after admitting she had used steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

And it seems like the crackdown will not stop with Graham’s and Tammy Thomas’ guilty decisions. Thomas, an Olympic cycling gold medalist, was found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice charges April this year. Many observers say these two trials are just warm ups for Barry Bonds. Slugger Bonds is also set to face a similar trial, which is expected to happen next year.

Tags: Angel Heredia, Antonio Pettigrew, BALCO, Marion Jones, obstruction and perjury convictions, steroids, Trevor Graham, US Olympic Committee

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in NFL, Steroids in Sports

Antonio Pettigrew’s name popped out in Angel Heredia’s testimony at the perjury trial of Trevor Graham. Heredia said he supplied the bemedalled sprinter with human growth hormone and the endurance-booster erythropoietin or EPO. He showed FedEx and Western Union records as evidence to the jury, saying that they suggested drug dealings from July 1997 to July 2001.

Further, Heredia said it was through Graham that he came to know Pettigrew. Pettigrew was one of Graham’s Sprint Capitol athletes, a group of track athletes who dominated international sporting events including the Olympics. This group included Marion Jones who is currently serving time due to perjury and check fraud case. Jones has been stripped of her five gold medals due to use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs.

Because of this testimony, Pettigrew is expected to take the witness stand and prosecutors plan to question him under oath. According to Daily News, if Pettigrew confesses to steroid use “it will present an interesting challenge for non-governmental anti-doping authorities. In the absence of positive urine or blood tests, such anti-doping agencies certainly can rescind an athlete’s Olympic or world championship medals, but typically only within an eight-year statute of limitations.”

This would mean that only the recent awards of Pettigrew are at risk of being recalled, such as the gold medals he won at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, or the 2001 world championships in Canada.

Pettigrew, who has never tested positive for steroids and other banned drugs, was part of the 4×400 team that won the gold medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. He also helped set the world record in that event in 1998 and won world titles in the relay in 1997, 1999 and 2001.

Graham’s trial is expected to last at least two weeks, and is being closely monitored in part because Barry Bonds, baseball’s home-run king, is expected to face a trial in the same courtroom within a year. The trial of Trevor Graham is being held in the court of U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, which began May 19 and is expected to continue through next week.

Tags: Antonio Heredia, Antonio Pettigrew, Barry Bonds, EPO, Marion Jones, steroids, Trevor Graham

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Sports

When Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia mentioned the names of athletes whom he claimed he supplied with steroids and other banned substances, one name stood out – Antonio Pettigrew. The key witness in the perjury trial of Trevor Graham, former coach to roster of elite track athletes, said he provided Pettigrew with human growth hormone and the endurance-booster erythropoietin, commonly known as EPO. Heredia, a former discus thrower and steroid dealer, showed Western Union money transfers to the jury, saying that they reflected drug transactions. He testified Graham introduced him to the champion sprinter.

Thus, prosecutors are ready to call on Pettigrew to the witness stand and question him under oath. And it would be a great disappointment if Pettigrew’s has indeed use steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. Pettigrew’s sports career has been impressive. His bio posted at the University of North Carolina site says it all:

He’s an Olympic gold medalist. He’s a five-time world champion. He’s a world-record holder. And now Antonio Pettigrew enters his second season as an assistant coach at North Carolina, where he will share his vast knowledge and expertise with the Tar Heel sprinters, hurdlers and relay teams.

In addition to the Olympic and world championship titles he piled up in the 4×400 meter relay during his career, Pettigrew is a five-time U.S. champion in the 400 meters – over a remarkable span of 12 years. His first title came in 1989, just two years after graduating from high school, and his last came in 2001, an extended period of consistently maintained excellence rarely seen in the world of track and field.

Pettigrew’s incredible success extends even farther, though. He spent his collegiate days competing at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, N.C. – where he earned his degree in 1992 – and was a 10-time All-America performer and four-time Division II NCAA champion in the 400 meters.

Use of steroids in the athletics, as well as in such games as the Major League and NFL, has been recently dominating national news. Steroids are popular among athletes because they are known to improve the physique and boost the performance. Athletes often buy steroids legally and do not break laws, but the government wants to legislate morality on them.

Tags: Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia, Antonio Pettigrew, EPO, human growth hormone, steroids, Trevor Graham, University of North Carolina

Posted in Steroids and Anabolic Steroids

Ten percent is what it might take to convict Trevor Graham.

When Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia heard that federal authorities had blown the cover off of the biggest steroid scandal ever, he began destroying documents that could spell out prison term to him. All he saved was about 10% of the paper trail, and many legal observers say that could make all the difference in the world for former sprint coach Trevor Graham.

Heredia is now a very cooperative witness for the prosecution against defendant Graham. He is expected to stand witness during the trial of Graham, which started Monday and is expected to be over in two weeks time. Just several days since the trial began, Heredia already squeaked out a mountain of incriminatory testimony against Graham.

Heredia said that throughout the 1990s, he had supplied Graham steroids and other drugs for the use of Graham’s Sprint Capitol athletes. He said there were instances when he sent steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs directly to those athletes, including Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew and Dennis Mitchell. There were also times when he sent steroids and other drugs via Graham, according to Heredia.

And Heredia has the remaining 10% paper trail to back his testimony. He’s got shipping and money transfer receipts, photos as well as blood test results to show the jury and the whole courtroom. Indeed, it was a show-and-tell testimony to the glee of the prosecution panel.

Prosecutors also played tapes of secretly recorded conversations between their informant Heredia and Graham in 2006, in which the two men seemed to have a close (closer than what had Graham has admitted to) with each other.

Graham has repeatedly denied that he did not lie with the federal investigators when they asked about his relationship with Heredia several years back. According to Graham, his association with Heredia was limited to just one innocent phone conversation with the guy.

Tags: Angel Heredia, Marion Jones, Sprint Capitol athletes, steroids, Tim Montgomery, Trevor Graham

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Baseball, Steroids in Sports

I shouldn’t have made that phone call – must be what keeps repeating on Trevor Graham’s head for weeks now.

The former elite sprint coach is on trial for lying to government authorities in 2004 when he said he didn’t know Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia beyond that one phone conversation he had with the confessed steroid dealer. Heredia is now the prosecution’s ace witness against Graham.

It was Graham who blew the whistle on BALCO, a company headquartered in Burlingame, California, which has steamrolled the investigation of one of the biggest steroid scandal in the U.S. It all began when Graham made an anonymous phone call to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) in June 2003. He divulged juicy details on doping activity of quite a number of athletes, and two things immediately caught USADA’s attention. First, that athletes were using a steroid that could pass detection. Second, the name Victor Conte. Conte was the founder and owner of BALCO, a sports medicine and nutritional supplement company. Conte also has ties with several professional sports organizations and popular athletes. Graham said Conte was the source of the undetectable steroid.

It was also Graham who brought a syringe with traces of the designer steroid, which was known as The Clear by its users. The Clear was later identified by investigators as tetrahydrogestrinone or THG. Subsequently, search and seizure were conducted by federal agents that uncovered the massive use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs by American and European athletes from diverse competitive sports. MLB players Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi; cyclist Tammy Thomas; track and field stars Tim Montgomery, Marion Jones, and Kelli White; NFL’s Barrett Robbins, Chris Cooper, and Dana Stubblefield were just some of the those implicated in said steroid scandal.

Several of the personalities involved have already served their sentence, including Conte and BALCO’s chemist Patrick Arnold. It was Arnold who developed The Clear. Meanwhile, other personalities like Marion Jones are currently on federal institutions because of BALCO-related crimes.

Tags: Angel Heredia, BALCO, Barry Bonds, steroids, THG, Trevor Graham, USADA, Victor Conte

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Baseball, Steroids in NFL, Steroids in Sports

Sad, but true – seems to be the perfect description to the unfolding events at the Trevor Graham’s trial in San Francisco District Court.

As the trial continues and as Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia speaks from the witness stand, names of (formerly) elite athletes reverberate inside the courtroom. The names of Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Antonio Pettigrew, Dennis Mitchell, Jerome Young and many others are mentioned, time and again, as if on a roll call. These athletes are accused of using steroids and now tagged as cheats.

There seems to be no stopping Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia from revealing everything he knows about the steroid use of former track coach Trevor Graham and his bevy of elite athletes. Graham has repeatedly denied that he had association with Heredia, a confessed steroid dealer and user. Graham insisted that he only had one innocent phone conversation with Heredia, and never met him or bought drugs from him.

But Heredia is saying otherwise. He said he and Graham had known each other since 1996, and the key government witness has taped conversations and photos to prove his statements. He testified that Graham back then had wanted a reliable conduit of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs for his athletes. Plus, according to Heredia, Graham wanted a mentor to teach him how his athletes can beat drug tests.

“Graham said he had read himself some books about drugs, but he wasn’t really knowledgeable,” Heredia said. “He wanted to have a source he could rely on, not only for stuff, but for not getting caught.”

Looks like Graham is now in deep legal and publicity quagmire. His former athletes are also pointing fingers his way. His attorney was saying Graham is being used as a “convenient scapegoat for their past mistakes and their past drug use” by athletes who have been caught using steroids and other drugs.

Other athletes go out and buy steroids freely while a few like Barry Bonds and  Graham are used as scapegoats by the government.

Tags: Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia, Antonio Pettigrew, Dennis Mitchell, Jerome Young, Marion James, Montgomery, steroids, Tim, Trevor Graham

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Baseball, Steroids in Sports

On witness stand at the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Heredia talked the talk and walked the walk just like what the government prosecutors told him to do. Heredia was a former steroid dealer who became government witness in the trial of Trevor Graham, the former coach to many track athletes implicated in steroid use. Graham is facing charges of lying to federal agents about his relationship with Heredia. Graham has pleaded not guilty to said charges.

Heredia named names, and quite a few they were. He testified that he sold banned substances, including steroids, to Olympic gold medal sprinters Tim Montgomery, Dennis Mitchell, Antonio Pettigrew, and Jerome Young. He also mentioned Ramon Clay, Duane Ross and Garfield Ellenwood who were also elite runners and whom, according to Heredia, he also supplied with steroids.

But the highlight of his testimony on Thursday was his statement regarding Marion Jones, the famous athlete who dominated the track at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Heredia said that he supplied Jones a three-drug cocktail to boost her performance at said international sporting event. The cocktail was a blend of oxygen-boosting Erythropoietin (EPO), growth hormone, and insulin. He further testified that he mailed these substances to Jones at the behest of Graham, Jones’ coach at that time. Jones has been stripped of every medal dating to September 2000 after her public admission of taking steroids and other PEDs.

January this year, Jones was sentenced to 6 months in prison for perjury in connection with check fraud case and use of PEDs. She is now serving her prison term at Carswell Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.

Heredia and Graham are two of the newest court players spawned by the BALCO Affair. In 2003, BALCO, or the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, was investigated due to its involvement in a scandal that rocked the sporting world. BALCO has reportedly supplied steroids, growth hormone, and other performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to high-profile athletes both from the US and Europe. The company’s founder and owner, Victor Conte, has already been sent and released from prison because of his participation with the steroids scandal.

Heredia decided to buy steroids from an international dealer out of Romania from the sources reported, and he got his HGH at a local facility in the USA – AIDS clinic?

Tags: Angel ‘Memo’ Heredia, BALCO, Marion Jones, Performance enhancing drugs, steroids, Trevor Graham, Victor Conte

Posted in steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in NFL, Steroids in Sports