Feb 15, 2008 1:34 pm US/Pacific
BALCO Founder, Trainer To Keep Steroid Documents
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / BCN) ―
-
-
BALCO Founder Victor Conte.
CBS
A federal judge ruled in San Francisco today that the four original defendants in a sports steroids case, including Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder Victor Conte, and their lawyers can hold onto confidential grand jury transcripts for now.
U.S. District Judge Susan Illston turned down a bid by prosecutors to require the defendants and their lawyers to return about 2,000 pages of sealed grand jury transcripts and search warrant affidavits dating from 2003.
Illston said that while the prosecution of the four men is completed, "the case at large is not over."
She said, "I find no reason to change the status quo" of a 2004 protective order covering the sealed material.
Ed Swanson, a lawyer for Conte, said the order allows the defense attorneys to keep the material in their offices and permits the attorneys and the defendants to look at it, but prohibits them from making the material public.
The grand jury in 2003 was investigating a steroids distribution scheme centered on Burlingame-based BALCO.
Conte and the other three original defendants - former BALCO Vice President James Valente, personal trainer Greg Anderson and track coach Remi Korchemny - were indicted in 2004 and eventually pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to distribute anabolic steroids, money laundering and/or misbranding of drugs.
They were given sentences ranging from probation to eight months of detention.
In later prosecutions, three other defendants pleaded guilty to various charges and three more, including former San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, are awaiting trial on charges of perjury and false statements during the BALCO probe.
Swanson told Illston Friday that defense attorneys want to keep the documents in case their clients are summoned to testify in the upcoming trials.
"We want to be able to prepare our clients if they are called to testify in the other perjury trials," Swanson said.
Swanson also argued the materials are not secret because some were leaked to news reporters by a former defense attorney and have been posted on the Internet.
"The horse has left the barn long ago," Swanson said.
Swanson said outside of court that the four original defendants
haven't received any indication as to whether prosecutors will call them to the witness stand at Bonds' not-yet-scheduled trial.
Bonds is accused of four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice for allegedly lying when he told the BALCO grand jury on Dec. 4, 2003, that he never knowingly received steroids or human growth hormone from Anderson, who was his personal trainer.
The other two defendants awaiting trial in Illston's court are former championship cyclist Tammy Thomas, who is accused of lying to the grand jury in 2003, and Olympic track coach Trevor Graham, who is charged with making false statements to federal investigators in 2004.
Conte, who served a sentence of four months in custody and four months of home detention, said after today's hearing, "I'm pleased Judge Illston ruled in our favor."
He said he now runs a new nutritional laboratory, called SNAC or Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, in the former BALCO office in Burlingame.
(© CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Bay City News contributed to this report.)
Watch Battle Of The Bands and then,
Cast A Vote For Your Favorite
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Comments