Tammy Thomas trial goes to jury

The Tammy Thomas trial goes to jury in San Francisco.  (Bloomberg)

``This case is about holding Ms. Thomas responsible for those false statements,'' Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow told a San Francisco federal jury today. ``This prosecution is not about steroids, it's not about sports. You cannot go into the grand jury and make false statements.''    

Thomas is also charged with obstructing the federal probe. Prosecutors said Thomas was the link between Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, a lab known as Balco, and Patrick Arnold, an Illinois chemist who made drugs for the lab.    

Her lawyers say she testified truthfully, any substances she took were legal at the time she took them and her testimony wasn't material to the grand jury probe.

To convict her, jurors have to agree that her testimony was material, or could have influenced the grand jury, according to the judge's instructions.    

``The government has miscast this case. They told you that the Balco grand jury was investing Patrick Arnold,'' Thomas lawyer Ethan Balogh told the jury. ``We know the Balco grand jury wasn't investigating Patrick Arnold'' because prosecutors already had evidence against him...

Thomas faces as much as three years in prison and a $250,000 fine for the false statement charges and 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for obstruction of justice.

Interesting the burden of proof placed on prosecutors.

Also interesting that the prosecutors argued the drugs were legal.  THG was nowhere near legal at that time.  Patrick Arnold -- who synthesized the steroid -- never went through a single phase of testing from basic animal studies, to animal and human toxicology, to pharmacokinetics, to human clinical trials.  Not one phase.  That is ludicrous to say this drug was legal.   It irritates this writer that a lawyer would argue that point in court without his tongue turning black and his eyes bleeding out.  As ludicrous as a woman shaving every morning, not thinking she is taking an anabolic androgenic steroid.

However, juries do not hinge deliberations on the issue of ludicrous statements.  We await the verdict.  So does Barry Bonds.

Comments

[Millard Baker]

THG and norbolethone weren't exactly legal - they were legally classified as "unapproved new drugs."

But prosecutors to argue that they were legally classified as anabolic steroids or controlled substance is no less ludicrous.

THG and norbolethone were not "legally" anabolic steroids at the time.

THG and norbolethone were not "legally" controlled substances at the time.

THG and norbolethone were not "technically" on the banned substances list at the time.

The defense is correct on these points.

[G]

That's inaccurate. Norbolethone (Genebol) was synthesized by Wyeth in 1966. There is a paper published as early as 1968:

Nutritional and metabolic effects of some newer steroids. V. Norbolethone. NT State Medical Journal. 68:2392-406.

There are 17 papers in the medical literature discussing norbolethone.

Very clearly that compound is a steroid, and investigated as an anabolic steroid.

THG is a cousin of gestinone, an anabolic steroid.

If creative underground chemists simply threw in a new NH3 or a new CL on a compound already known, that doesn't change the biochemical action, nor the classification.

Not necessarily pertinent to the Thomas case, but imagine if everyone with a chemistry kit synthesized some new compound, then distributed it to the public. That would present an incredible public health problem with unknown side effects including death resulting.

It is incredible that athletes like Marion Jones actually took these unproven drugs...no research on the drugs, no basic science, no toxicology data, no human safety data.

If someone synthesizes a molecule similar to sulfur mustard (mustard gas) it may be an unknown compound, but could be every bit as lethal...

[Millard Baker]

You are absolutely correct - from a scientific perspective!

But this is a legal case and the arguments are legal arguments. THG and Norbolethone were NOT LEGALLY classified as anabolic steroids. Read the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 - THG and norbolethone are not included. Then read the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 and notice that this amendment LEGALLY CHANGED the status of THG and Norbolethone to "Anabolic Steroids."

[Millard Baker]

The arbirariness of legal definitions regarding steroids is really quite silly. Over the past decade, we have learned that a pharmacologically defined (anabolic-androgenic) steroid can be legally defined as (1) a "dietary supplement", (2) an "anabolic steroid", and (3) an "unapproved new drug."

The legal status obviously does nothing to change the pharmacological definition. But the legal defintion (no matter how arbitrary) has very important implications in our criminal justice system.