The Change Mariner

4 Indicted in a Steroid Scheme That Involved Top Pro Athletes

Barry Bonds's personal trainer, a prominent track coach and two executives of a nutritional supplements laboratory were charged yesterday with illegally distributing steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of professional athletes in football, baseball and track and field. The indictments were the first to result from an investigation that began in August 2002 when federal agents began looking into the activities at the supplements laboratory, known as the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, or Balco.

The allegation that the illicit drugs were sold to dozens of athletes seemed to indicate that their use was more widespread than has previously been reported. Nine athletes have been identified in news reports as failing tests for the steroid known as THG, which has been linked to Balco. More than a dozen athletes testified before the grand jury investigating the company.
The four men indicted yesterday were accused of conspiracy to distribute steroids, possession of human growth hormone and money laundering, according to the 42-count indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in San Francisco and announced in Washington by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Anabolic steroids are a controlled substance, and under federal law it is illegal to distribute them without a prescription.