In what may be a prelude to their meeting in court, Victor Conte and Shane Mosley traded accusations in connection with the boxer’s defamation suit.

Mosley had filed the suit in a New York state court against the founder of the California-based supplement company known as BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative). This is Mosley’s move to refute Conte’s allegations that he watched the boxer injected himself with performance-enhancing drugs and that Mosley knew what he was taking.

Mosley admitted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs but he continually insists that he didn’t know then that what he was taking were anabolic steroids.

Conte’s lawyer filed a motion to dismiss Mosley’s suit and among the documents he filed was an affidavit that detailed the drugs and payments made by Mosley before he defeated Oscar De La Hoya in September 2003.

“I believe it is time for Shane Mosley to receive the consequences he deserves for lying about his use of performance enhancing drugs,” Conte said Tuesday in an e-mail to USA Today. “Other athletes associated with BALCO who have lied about their use of drugs have been banned from their sport, stripped of their records and medals and even spent time in jail.”

Meanwhile, Judd Burstein, Mosley’s lawyer, said Conte’s allegations “are completely false” and that he us sure that they will have a day in court. “I’m salivating to get Victor Conte under cross examination,” Burstein said.

From USA Today:

Among the documents Conte’s lawyer, Thomas Harvey, said he filed along with a motion to dismiss Mosley’s suit, is an affidavit in which Conte says he charged Mosley $900 for EPO and $600 for the steroids known as “the cream” and “the clear.” Conte says he billed Mosley an additional $150 for blood work and $200 for the limousine Mosley used during his visit to Conte’s offices. Conte also says Mosley paid him $500 in cash and, later, $1,350 by personal check.

The World Boxing Council revealed earlier this month it is investigating the doping allegations against Mosley, who won his WBC junior middleweight title fight against De La Hoya by a decision.

Tags: anabolic steroids, BALCO, boxing, EPO, Judd Burstein, Oscar De La Hoya, Performance enhancing drugs, Shane Mosley, Thomas Harvey, Victor Conte

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

An AP report focuses on the high-tech side of the most massive doping scandal in the United States referred to as the BALCO Affair.

There is an ongoing legal dilemma amongst federal judges relating to the seizure of urine samples of more than 100 major league players not originally involved in the BALCO steroid investigation.

The battle is now at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in which an 11-member panel must decide whether prosecutors had the legal right to seize the names and urine samples of the 104 players during a raid carried out in 2004.

“There has to be limits when the government seizes vast amount of information on a computer,” Major League Baseball Players Association lawyer Elliot Peters said.

The federal agents who took the material from the Long Beach-based Comprehensive Drug Testing Inc. had a search warrant for the test results of just 10 players, but discovered on a computer spreadsheet the test results of additional players.

The players’ association went to court, and lower-court judges ruled the additional names were seized illegally. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reversed those decisions twice in 2-1 votes, but the entire 9th Circuit set the reversal aside and decided to hear the case en banc.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Wilson argued Thursday the government had a legal right to investigate all of the players who tested positive because their names and test results were on a single document containing the names of the 10 players listed in the search warrant. Wilson said since the government was entitled to 10 players’ test results, it was entitled to the entire spreadsheet.

Wilson’s argument was attacked early and often by at least six judges, who expressed doubt that a computer spreadsheet is analogous to a paper document, which investigators have a right to seize so long as it contains evidence listed in the search warrant.

“When you are talking about computers, a single document can contain vast amounts of information,” Judge Kim Wardlaw said.
A
Judge Mylan Smith was even more pointed, complaining that allowing the government on narrowly focused investigations to seize computer databases, hard drives and spreadsheets containing large amounts of information “would probably be frightening to the public because there’s no end to it.”

The BALCO Affair has involved several famous athletes and has resulted to congressional hearings and independent investigations. Most prominent of these investigations is the Mitchell Report, which has probed the use of steroids in the Major League Baseball.

Several personalities were prosecuted and jailed because of their involvement in said scandal including BALCO’s founder Victor Conte, chemist Patrick Arnold who designed “the clear”, containing testosterone, an anabolic steroid, and track athlete Marion Jones.

Tags: anabolic steroids, “the clear”, BALCO Affair, computer databases, government search and seizure procedure, Major League Baseball, Marion Jones, Patrick Arnold, urine samples, Victor Conte

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

Disgraced sprinter Marion Jones once again appeared in a TV show to profess her innocence in the BALCO doping controversy that has ruined many athletes’ stellar career.

In her recent appearance on “Good Morning America” Jones  admits the incident may have ruined her reputation forever but she hopes that she can prevent others from committing the mistakes she has made. This is the same mantra she uttered at the “Oprah Winfrey Show”, her first interview since she was released from prison in September. Expect the same tune to be played in 2009 as the former track star is apparently running a crusade to “reach out” to youths out there.

“I have paid the ultimate price,” she said on “Good Morning America“. “For the rest of my life, certain people will equate me with this controversy.

“Throughout all of this I’ve learned I’ve hurt a lot of people and it’s my responsibility to give back,” the 33-year-old said.

Up to this day, Jones insists she has no knowledge that prohibited compounds were being administered to her. This despite of her six-month imprisonment for lying about her anabolic steroid use and her involvement in a check-fraud scheme.

BALCO’s Victor Conte had consistently refuted Jones’ claims. “She did the injection with me sitting right there next to her,” he said in December 2004.

Between these two controversial figures, who do you think people would believe?

From ABC News:

The once-heralded runner was at the top of her game and had the nation’s admiration, and a life that glittered as much as the gold medals she picked up on the Olympic circuit. But a doping scandal stripped her of her Olympic medals, and the one-time fastest woman in the world spent six months in prison after she was convicted in January of lying to federal prosecutors about her use of performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam.

“I was in a much different place in my life. I made much different choices. I made bad decisions,” said Jones, who missed her youngest son’s first birthday due to jail time.

The sportswoman still contends — as she always has — that she was unaware that drugs were being administered to her.

“That’s the truth. I have experienced a lot of negative consequences for what I’ve admitted,” she said. “When you’re a high-profile person, you trust certain people around you. You trust they will have your best interests in mind.”

On Oprah, Jones apologized to her teammates who were stripped of their medals and records because of her doping violation during the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

“When I stepped on that track, I thought everybody was drug-free, including myself,” Jones said. “I apologize for having to put everybody through all of this.

“I’m trying to move on. I hope that everybody else can move on, too.”

Tags: “Good Morning America”, “Oprah Winfrey Show”, BALCO, doping, Marion Jones, Performance enhancing drugs, steroids, Sydney Olympics, Victor Conte

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

According to the New York Daily News, boxer champ Shane Mosley is on the verge of being disqualified from the boxing world.

This developed as court transcripts revealed that prior to his fight with Oscar De La Hoya in 2003 Mosley had used anabolic steroids and EPO. Mosley won the title in said encounter. In a little under three months, Mosley confessed his doping activity before a grand jury.

The court transcripts were formerly held at protective order until they were recently released by US District Judge Susan Illston in connection with the Barry Bonds doping trial.

Because of Mosley’s apparent violation of the sport’s anti-doping policy, the World Boxing Council is taking steps to address the issue.

“It was a real surprise to read that Mosley has confessed that he did take those medicines, those drugs that are totally prohibited by the WBC,” said the Council’s president, Jose Sulaiman. “The WBC rules state that we must have a hearing. This is a matter of serious concern to us.”

“Thus far the WBC has seen only press reports, and must therefore investigate any available evidence and review it, in terms of the WBC rules and regulations’ anti-doping provisions,” said Robert Lenhardt, an attorney for the WBC.

WBC’s board of governors has the power to disqualify or fine a boxer even after the conclusion of a fight.

According to the WBC rules, no boxer “shall be under the influence of any drug during the contest that will in any manner affect their performance in the ring.”

Mosley’s next ring assignment is slated Jan. 24 at Staples Center in Los Angeles. He’s due to exchange blows with WBA welterweight title holder Antonio Margarito.

The Daily News had also reviewed the “doping calendars” seized at the BALCO raids in which Mosley’s doping activity was recorded. Below is its interpretation of the BALCO’s doping calendar and testimony.

The notations include the letters “L”, “C” and “E,” along with notations for when to take iron (2 iron), vitamin E (vit), folic acid (1 f) and B12 (1 B12). “L” stands for “liquid,” or “the clear,” which is the designer steroid THG. “C” stands for “the cream,” which is an epitestosterone/tesosterone substance. “E” stands for the blood booster EPO.

During the month of August, Mosley’s calendar says he took EPO eight times, injecting himself twice on each occasion on each side of his belly button.

At the bottom of the calendar the date of his fight with De La Hoya is noted – Sept. 13.

There are also notations at the top of the July calendar for the money Mosley paid Conte for his drugs. He paid the BALCO founder a total of $1850.

Here is the breakdown of Conte’s complicated math:

$1,650 = $900 (for EPO) + $600 (for “the clear and the cream”) + $150 (for blood tests)

$1,650 – $500 (paid in cash) = owes $1,150

$1,150 + $200 (Gateway Limo to airport) = $1,350 (paid by check)

In his grand jury transcript, Mosley admits to paying $500 in cash and $1350 by check.

Tags: anabolic steroids, Antonio Margarito, BALCO, boxing, court transcript, EPO, grand jury testimony, Jose Sulaiman, Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, Victor Conte, World Boxing Council

Posted in Celebrities and Steroids, steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Boxing

New York Daily News has reviewed the doping calendars that were seized during the BALCO raids, as well as the recently released court transcripts of Shane Mosley’s grand jury testimony, and revealed the boxer had used performance-enhancing drugs in his preparation with his encounter against Oscar Dela Hoya in 2003. The court transcripts were formerly held at protective order until they were released by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston last Wednesday.

From Daily News:

Doping calendars seized in the BALCO raid show that champion boxer Shane Mosley scaled back his use of the notorious doping agent EPO in the two weeks before his Sept. 13 title fight with Oscar De La Hoya, as his blood grew unnaturally thick with oxygen-rich red blood cells.

That corresponds with previous reports that seized medical records showed Mosley’s hematocrit – a measure of red blood cells, and therefore endurance – shooting up 8.2% in just two weeks.

Hematocrit readings rarely fluctuate that much naturally, and usually linger in the low 40s for non-doping men. Anything over 50 will get an Olympic cyclist or marathon runner suspended from competition. Mosley jumped from 44 to 52.2 in two weeks as he prepared for the fight, according to a Sept. 28, 2007 report by Sports Illustrated.

In his testimony in 2003, Mosley admitted he used the blood booster EPO and anabolic steroids he bought from BALCO for $1850. He also admitted he had used the designer drugs referred to as “the cream” and “the clear”, but he insisted publicly and in his testimony that he didn’t know they were either illegal or banned.

Victor Conte, BALCO’s founder, however, said Mosley knew what he was taking.  Conte is being sued for defamation by Mosley.

Conte wrote said in a sworn statement submitted in the defamation case: “Specifically, I explained to Mr. Mosley and Mr. Hudson (Mosley’s trainer at the time) that ‘The Clear’ was an undetectable anabolic steroid and that ‘The Cream’ contained testosterone and epitestosterone. I explained that ‘The Cream’ was primarily to be used as a masking agent. I also explained that EPO increases the production of red blood cells, and therefore Mr. Mosley should take additional dietary supplements that aid in the manufacture of red blood cells, such as iron, vitamin C, vitamin E, folic acid, and vitamin B12. … There is no question that I informed Mr. Mosley that he was taking the three banned performance enhancing drugs.”

Tags: anabolic steroids, BALCO, Barry Bonds, court transcripts, EPO, Performance enhancing drugs, Shane Mosley, steroids, Victor Conte

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

Carl Lewis and Victor Conte are two prominent personalities who have been engaged in running – the former running on the athletic track, the latter running a steroid ring. These two ‘runners’ suspect sprint superstar Usain Bolt’s performance at the recently concluded Beijing Olympics could not only be due to his diet of homemade yams but to steroids and other performance enhancers as well.

From Times Online:

It has been a Jamaican love-in since Usain Bolt bestrode the Olympic Games and won a hat-trick of gold medals, but a voice from the past urged caution as the new sprint sensation was heralded as the king of Kingston. With Bolt in the throes of a national party after his homecoming this week, Carl Lewis said that his achievements are questionable.

The American, 47, who won nine Olympic golds, stopped short of accusing Bolt of doping, but his remarks were the most damning yet from a track insider. In an incendiary interview in Sports Illustrated, Lewis said: “When people ask me about Bolt I say he could be the greatest athlete of all time. But for someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don’t question that in a sport that has the reputation it has right now, you’re a fool. Period.”

Conte has recently expressed his misgivings about the impressive performance of athletes coming from the Caribbean countries like Jamaica. Conte’s suspicion is based on the fact that these countries lack or have inadequate testing programs for steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. This is also the basis of Lewis’ skepticism; that unlike the United States, Jamaica has humungous task ahead regarding its anti-doping policy.

“I’m proud of America right now because we have the best random and most comprehensive drug-testing program. Countries like Jamaica do not have a random program, so they can go months without being tested. No one is accusing Bolt, but don’t live by a different rule and expect the same kind of respect. How dare anybody feel that there shouldn’t be scrutiny, especially in our sport?”

Understandably, Lewis’ comments has raised some hackles in Bolt’s country, particularly Herb Elliot, Jamaica team doctor and a member of the IAAF antidoping commission. Elliot stated that the US was circulating “condescending crap” at the Olympics. “They still think we don’t know anything down in Jamaica,” he said.

In 2003, Lewis was one of the athletes whose names appeared in the documents provided by Dr. Wade Exum to Sports Illustrated. Exum was the United States Olympic Committee from 1991 to 2000.

The American athletes, numbering to about 100, failed anti-doping screenings and should have been disqualified from participating in the Olympics but were nevertheless got clearance to compete. The documents said Lewis tested positive three times prior to the 1988 Seoul Olympics for three banned stimulants – pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine. He was banned from said Olympics and was suspended for six months. Lewis denied he consciously used the banned substances, a claim which USOC had believed and prompted them to clear Lewis for future competitions.

Tags: Carl Lewis, drug testing program, Jamaica, lack of random testing in Jamaica, steroid ring, Usain Bolt, Victor Conte

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

The upcoming intense presidential election is one of the reasons why Victor Conte’s book is not telling anything until 2009. Another intervention is Shane Mosley’s legal offensive against the former BALCO chief.

From the New York Daily News:

Nasty legal warfare has broken out over Victor Conte’s forthcoming tell-all book about his leading role in the world’s biggest steroid conspiracy.

Among the factors is an expensive barrage of defamation litigation launched against Conte by boxer Shane Mosley, one of the athletes whose BALCO doping regimens Conte promises to describe in detail, and Mosley’s threats to sue the book’s publisher.

Conte admits that Mosley’s defamation suits are a “distraction”. According to Conte, he has devoted anecdotal reports on Mosley regarding the boxer’s used of performance-enhancing drugs in Straight Dope. Conte says that Mosley knew “exactly and precisely what he was doing” and had used both “the cream” and “the clear”, both designer drugs then. Mosley, however, claims that he thought the products he was supplied with by BALCO were legal.

Mosley is represented by the notorious New York attorney Judd Burstein.

The most recent of Burstein’s actions against Conte is a motion filed Wednesday asking a U.S. District Court in California to sanction Conte’s defense attorney for submitting what Burstein called an “outrageous and entirely frivolous” motion to recover $75,654 in attorney fees from a defamation suit that Burstein initiated and withdrew.

Burstein rejected Lyons’ overtures. He has promised to sue Skyhorse and its insurers.

In early August, Mosley’s camp filed a $12 million defamation suit in a New York state court while pulling out a similar complaint in a federal court in San Francisco.

Conte’s attorney, James Wagstaffe, had argued that federal claim violated California’s anti-SLAPP statutes. A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation is a lawsuit or a threat of lawsuit that is intended to intimidate and silence critics by encumbering them with the cost of a legal defense thereby inhibiting their criticism or opposition.

Tags: “BALCO: The Straight Dope on Barry Bonds, “the clear”, “the cream”, BALCO, defamation suit against Conte, Marion Jones and What We Can Do To Save Sports", PEDs, Shane Mosley, steroids, Victor Conte

Posted in buy steroids, Steroid Cycles, steroid nation, Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Baseball, Steroids in Boxing, Steroids in MMA, Steroids in NFL, Steroids in Olympics, Steroids in Sports, Steroids in UFC

Former BALCO boss Victor Conte has hinted in his letter to the New York Daily News that the sporting world should take a closer look on athletes originating from the Caribbean. Conte says that countries like Jamaica and other Caribbean nations do not have independent anti-doping federations and practice “minimal offseason testing” and, therefore, are of suspect of using steroids. An excerpt from Conte’s letter:

I have no evidence of doping by any of the winners of medals in Beijing, but when times begin falling like rain, questions arise, especially when the record-setters are from countries such as Jamaica and other Caribbean nations….

Conte mentions that in the women’s 100-meter event four of the eight finalists were from the region and Jamaican athletes took the 1-2-3 places in said event with Shelly-Ann Fraser taking home the gold.

He also mentions Jamaica’s Usain Bolt and Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Thompson who won the gold and silver medal in the 100 meters respectively. Conte describes Bolt’s victory as “a shocking world-record time of 9.69, which is almost unbelievable since he shut it down before the finish line.”

Conte might know the top-secret protocol of doping; however, could he be totally right to hint that these personalities should be under a cloud of suspicion, as he puts it, because of possible use of performance-enhancing drugs?

In the ongoing Olympics, it’s obvious that the track is being dominated by athletes of African ancestry. And if you’re going to mention preeminent figures in Olympic sprinting and running events you’re going to come up with names like Marion Jones, Michael Johnson, Khalid Khannouchi, Donovan Bailey and Maurice Greene. These athletes have one common denominator – their ancestral origin is Africa.

Jon Entine in his The Story Behind the Amazing Success of Black Athletes offers an explanation to this phenomenon and it is not, in any way, connected with steroids.

Genetically linked, highly heritable characteristics such as skeletal structure, the distribution of muscle fiber types, reflex capabilities, metabolic efficiency, lung capacity, and the ability to use energy more efficiently are not evenly distributed among populations and cannot be explained by known environmental factors.

Although scientists are just beginning to isolate the genetic links to those biologically-based differences, it is indisputable that they exist. Each sport demands a slightly different mix of biomechanical, anaerobic, and aerobic abilities. Athletes from each region of the world tend to excel in specific events as a result of evolutionary adaptations to extremely different environments that became encoded in the genes.

Genes, it seems, play major role in on one’s athletic performance. This is why, the article says, whites of European ancestry dominate sports like weightlifting, wrestling, shot-put and hammer. People of this race have “on average, more natural upper-body strength” because they have the mesomorphic body type which such events require – large and muscular, particularly in the upper of the body, with relatively short arms and legs and thick torsos.

This body structure is proving to be an advantage in sports where strength rather than speed is the winning asset.”

East Asians, on the other hand, are a presence in diving, gymnastics and figure skating because they tend to be small and more flexible.

On black athletes Entine says that “there are a range of structural traits shared by genetically-diverse African athletes: low body fat, longer legs in comparison to the rest of their bodies, and narrow hips.”

Here are some of the characteristics enumerated by Entine that explain why black athletes, particularly of West African descent, monopolize the Olympic track today.

•    relatively less subcutaneous fat on arms and legs and proportionately more lean body and muscle mass, broader shoulders, larger quadriceps, and bigger, more developed musculature in general;
•    denser, shallower chests;
•    higher center of gravity, generally shorter sitting height, narrower hips, and lighter calves;
•    longer arm span and “distal elongation of segments” – the hand is relatively longer than the forearm, which in turn is relatively longer than the upper arm; the foot is relatively longer than the tibia (leg), which is relatively longer than the thigh;
•    a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscles and more anaerobic enzymes, which can translate into more explosive energy.

Tags: black athletes, Caribbean, doping tests, genetics, genetics role in athletic performance, Jon Entine, steroids, The Story Behind the Amazing Success of Black Athletes, track athletes, Victor Conte

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

To Victor Conte, the Caribbean is not only great for doing some R and R, but for doping as well.

In his letter to the New York Daily News, the former big boss of BALCO is giving out unsolicited advice for anti-doping organizations to step up their testing policies. And we’re sure Conte meant well and definitely knows what he’s talking about. He is a reformed man since he has spent some time in prison and then some more time on house arrest, we think any man would have the opportunity to turn over a new leaf under those circumstances. And for masterminding the biggest steroid scandal in history, we are sure he knows the ins and outs of steroid use.

Apparently, Mr. Conte is so concerned with the problem of doping in sports that he met with the former WADA boss Dick Pound in December 2007. Then, Conte has stressed the importance of implementing more out-of-competition testing to curb the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

On said meeting, Conte said he advised Pound to deploy “disguised testers” to Jamaica, providing WADA with details about a certain drug supplier there. Conte pointed out to Pound the futility of undertaking testing at competitions saying that it is during the offseason period that PEDs are widely used “when athletes use anabolic steroids in conjunction with intensive weight training and develop the explosive strength base that serves them throughout the competitive season”.

Pound, however, stepped down two weeks after the meeting, according to Conte, and the organization “failed to act upon the information.”

As for the ongoing Games in Beijing, Conte has this to say:

I have no evidence of doping by any of the winners of medals in Beijing, but when times begin falling like rain, questions arise, especially when the record-setters are from countries such as Jamaica and other Caribbean nations where there is no independent anti-doping federation. In the women’s 100 meters, for instance, four of the eight finalists in the event were from such countries. Jamaican women swept all three Olympic medals: Shelly-Ann Frasier’s winning time of 10.78 seconds is blazing fast, and reflects a drop from a best of 11.31 in 2007 to 10.78 in 2008, an improvement of more than five-tenths of a second in a single year and about five meters faster than before.

In the letter, Conte also talks about Usain Bolt, who won the men’s 100-meter gold medal and whose triumph Conte considers as “a shocking world-record time of 9.69.” Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Thompson also merited a special mention in Conte’s letter.  Thompson won the silver in same event in a personal best time of 9.89.

Conte says that that something is going on considering that five out eight finalists in the men’s 100-m race were from an area “where there is minimal out-of-season testing and five-of-six 100-meter medals were won by athletes from Caribbean countries without independent anti-doping federations”. Conte, however, reiterates that he has no knowledge that said athletes were involved in illegal activity. He says: “All I know is that they and other athletes come from regions where minimal offseason testing is administered.”

Conte’s ends his appeal with these statements:

There is a desperate need for each of the Caribbean countries to have an independent and fully functioning anti-doping federation. Until that is the case, the sprinters from these countries are going to continue to be under a cloud of suspicion.

I believe that these athletes need to be frequently drug tested on a random basis during the offseason, so that the cloud of suspicion can begin to move on. It’s my opinion that more effective drug testing in the Caribbean will help to restore the credibility of entire sport of track and field.

Tags: 100-meter event, anabolic steroid, BALCO, Caribbean, Dick Pound, Jamaica, off-season testing, Richard Thompson, track athletes, Usain Bolt, Victor Conte, WADA

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

Champion boxer Shane Mosley is a fighter by heart and to him quitting is not an option. That philosophy has worked for him in the ring and he hopes it’s going to do him service in the legal arena as well.

Mosley’s defamation suit against Victor Conte and the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) has been dismissed in the San Francisco Federal Court and Mosley immediately filed similar suit in a state court in New York.

James Wagstaffe, Conte’s lawyer, said he would file a motion to argue that New York is an improper jurisdiction.

“He’s seeking publicity,” Wagstaffe said of Mosley. “He was facing bad publicity. His suit was about to be thrown out. He’s suing because he wants the world to know he sued. It’s a process case, and at the end of the day, when people bring libel suits to make a point, the truth follows.”

“Shane Mosley is going to soon find out that the truth packs a powerful punch,” said Conte. “I am going to knock him out in a court of law.”

Conte is the founder of BALCO and is now called as the ‘mastermind of the biggest doping ring in the history of sports’. In 2003, the so-called BALCO Affair grabbed international attention because of the status of the personalities that were implicated.

The BALCO Legacy

Numerous professional athletes, including Marion Jones, Bill Romanowski, Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds, were reportedly supplied with steroids and performance boosters. Subsequently, a federal inquiry took place conducting investigations and procuring evidence against athletes, coaches, trainers, as well as those connected with BALCO.

A couple of those involved in said scandal have been found guilty, mostly of perjury charges.

Marion Jones is currently serving her six-month prison term for perjury involving check fraud case and use of banned compounds.

Trevor Graham, the famed US athletics coach to many elite athletes, including Jones, was convicted in May 2008 of one count of lying to federal investigators.

Conte himself spent four months in prison and another four months under house arrest for one count of conspiracy to distribute steroids and a second count of laundering a portion of a check.

In December 2007, The Mitchell Report was released. United States Senator George Mitchell conducted the investigation on the use of steroids and performance-enhancing substances in the Major League.

Mitchell was appointed by MLB Commissioner Bud Selig at the height of the controversy created by the publication of the book Game of Shadows by San Francisco Chronicle investigative reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada in 2006. Williams and Fainaru-Wada were the reporters who exposed the BALCO Affair. Game of Shadows chronicles the use of banned compounds by MLB players, including Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield.

Of Books and Crooks?

Taking cue from the authors of Game of Shadows Conte is now planning to publish a tell-all book, which includes the allegations he made against Mosley.

It was March 30 this year when it was announced by the New York Daily News that Conte is scheduled to write BALCO: The Straight Dope on Barry Bonds, Marion and What We Can Do to Save Sports.

Mosley’s attorney, Judd Burstein, meanwhile said that they are ready for a legal counter.
“As soon as they publish the book we’re going to sue them the next day,” Burstein said to the Daily News.

According to Burstein, the new suit against Conte demands for at least $2 million in compensatory and at least $10 million in punitive damages. He added that they are ready also to sue the insurance company underwriting Skyhorse Publishing for defamation. Skyhorse is the publisher of Conte’s book.

Conte bared his allegations about Mosley’s doping to the public on March 30, telling several media groups that Mosley was very much in the know of what he was getting from the BALCO founder.

Three days later Mosley sued Conte.

Mosley has repeatedly denied that he has knowingly take steroids and other PEDs. He said he thought the substances he was provided with were legal and healthy compounds. According to Burstein, his client has provided the same statement for the grand jury which was investigating BALCO in 2003.

“Shane’s never denied that he took the stuff,” said Burstein. “He just didn’t know what it was.”

Conte, however, was saying otherwise and offered evidence to support his claim.

Conte said he has calendars that provide vital details about Mosley’s doping protocol. Along with Mosley’s former trainer Derryl Hudson, Conte has filed a sworn affidavit detailing how he directly explained to the boxer that the compounds were steroids and erythropoietin or what is commonly known as EPO. Conte and Hudson had also stated in their affidavits that Conte demonstrated to Mosley how to self-administer EPO.

“This dismissal is proof that the case has no merit,” said Wagstaffe of Mosley’s case in San Francisco. “After we submitted proof that Mr. Conte’s statements were true, Mosley and his attorneys dismissed the California lawsuit.”

Jeff Novitsky, a lead investigator on the BALCO steroid scandal, has also directly implicated Mosley. Novitsky reported that a document found at a BALCO lab indicated that the boxer had received designer steroids known as The Clear and The Cream, which were later identified as tetrahydrogestrinone and testosterone cream, respectively.
Defamation suits en vogue

Defamation suits seem to be the trend nowadays in sports world. Another BALCO-related suit was by that of Roger Clemens against his former trainer Brian McNamee. Clemens and McNamee were two of the most prominent names involved in the BALCO Affair.

In January this year, Clemens filed a defamation complaint against McNamee before the latter was to testify on Clemen’s use of steroids and human growth hormone.

Other athletes outside of the BALCO Affair have also sued for defamation related to doping allegations in recent years. These include cyclists Kayle Leogrande and Lance Armstrong.
Seven-time Tour de France champ Armstrong has been embroiled in numerous defamation suits stemming from doping allegations. He’s been against Britain’s Sunday Times in 2004 when the newspaper reprinted allegations mentioned in the book L. A. Confidentiel – Les secrets de Lance Armstrong.

The book contains the allegations of Armstrong’s former masseuse Emma O’ Reilly who claimed that she had disposed of syringes and disguised needle marks on his arms. Another source of the book was Steve Swart, a teammate of Armstrong during his Motorola days, who alleged that he and Armstrong as well other riders began using steroids in 1995.

Kayle Leogrande, likewise, recently served a defamation case against Suzanne Sonye, a former staff member of Leogrande’s Rock Racing team. Leogrande also filed similar complaint against fellow professional cyclist Matt DeCanio.

The defamation suit resulted from a phone conversation between Sonye and Decanio, in which the former had mentioned that Leogrande was a doper. DeCanio, an anti-doping activist, recorded the conversation and posted it on his website. Leogrande apparently got a temper as colorful as his tattoos and took offense and sue Sonye and DeCanio.

Tags: BALCO, boxing, cycling, defamation suit, Game of shadows, Kayle Leogrande, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Performance enhancing drugs, Shane Mosley, steroids, Tetrahydrogestrinone, The Clear, The Cream, Trevor Graham, Victor Conte

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