Jocks breaking rocks: Athletes (boosters, trainers) behind bars

Reasononline carries a very nicely researched piece on athletes, boosters, and trainer who walk the line in a prison.  The athletes end up in jail for drug-related offenses, which recently included illegal steroids and PEDs.

 The article sets the stage with the conviction of Logan Young, the 'Bama Booster who bought players for the Crimson Tide:

Before his untimely death in 2006, Logan Young faced six months in federal prison for “conspiracy to commit racketeering” and “crossing state lines to commit racketeering,” both felonies. While those charges made Young sound like a mafioso, his real offense was violating the recruiting rules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)...The conviction of Logan Young as “the first college sports booster sentenced to prison essentially for busting NCAA rules” (in the words of ESPN.com’s Mike Fish) is just one example of a disturbing trend: the federal criminalization of private rule breaking in the world of sports.

The authors look at athletes who did time for crimes which include steroid offenses:

Marion Jones:

Former Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones served six months in federal prison last year for making false statements to two grand juries about her personal use of performance-enhancing steroids. As part of a highly unusual plea agreement, unrelated check fraud charges against Jones were dropped in return for her publicly admitting her past steroid use and retiring from the sport...

Barry Bonds:

All-time Major League Baseball (MLB) home run leader Barry Bonds was scheduled to begin trial in March on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, based on his grand jury testimony in a steroid distribution case that closed in 2005 after producing just four minor convictions that netted seven months prison time combined (half as long as Bonds’ personal trainer served behind bars for criminal contempt after refusing to testify about his boss). At press time, yet another federal grand jury was hearing testimony about whether former MLB pitching great Roger Clemens committed perjury when he denied using steroids after being hauled in front of Congress in February 2008.

There are also 'derivative crimes'; as a 'derivative' in finance refers to an instrument that derives value from the underlying entity so do 'derivative crimes.  For instance money laundering, obstruction of justice, racketeering and so on.  Same with jock crimes.

In 1990 Congress added performance-enhancing steroids to its list of banned substances, largely in response to a scandal involving Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson, who was stripped of his 1988 Olympic gold medal after testing positive for anabolic steroids. Capitalizing on the public outcry, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) held hearings on doping in sports. McCain threatened to introduce legislation that would take away the autonomy of the U.S. Olympic Committee unless it adopted aggressive anti-doping policies.

The article continues with a lengthy discussion of the BALCO derivative crimes, found after the jump..

The biggest criminal prosecution to come out of the federal steroids scare has been the inquiry into the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), of Burlingame, California. BALCO ostensibly provided blood and urine analysis and food supplements to elite athletes while quietly developing a then-undetectable steroid nicknamed “The Clear,” which it allegedly sold to Marion Jones, Barry Bonds, and other high-profile athletes. When federal investigators received tips that BALCO was providing steroids and human growth hormone to well-known sports figures, they leaped at the opportunity to haul the athletes in front of grand juries.

These subpoenas placed Bonds and others in an untenable position not well understood by the public. Witnesses summoned by a federal grand jury, unlike those who testify in a criminal trial, do not have full Fifth Amendment rights to withhold potentially self-incriminating testimony. (Indeed, Bonds’ trainer, Greg Anderson, spent 14 months in jail for refusing to testify.) If Bonds or any of the other athletes had knowingly taken steroids, they had three choices: They could deny it, which would mean committing perjury; they could try to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights, which prosecutors could reject and would in any case be perceived by the public as tantamount to admitting guilt; or they could admit they used steroids, risking their careers either byinviting league sanction or provoking public outrage.

Partly as compensation for the lack of full Fifth Amendment protection, federal grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret. But press leaks are common, especially in high-profile cases. Bonds’ entire testimony was published in the San Francisco Chronicle within hours. It is a felony to leak secret grand jury testimony, but since federal prosecutors tend not to indict themselves, it is not uncommon for prosecutors or others to leak testimony when it suits their purposes. (The leaker of Bonds’ testimony, a former attorney for BALCO, ended up being sentenced to 30 months in prison.)...

The BALCO investigation, which has cost more than $55 million so far, quickly moved from imposing mild punishments on four steroid dealers connected with BALCO to prosecuting star witnesses for perjury and obstruction of justice. The larger sentencing stakes of the latter indicate what the goal has been all along: to throw the expanded federal criminal law book at targeted athletes as a public shaming exercise.

The perjury traps are not limited to criminal cases. In February 2008 the legendary pitcher Roger Clemens faced his own inquisition, not before a grand jury but before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). During the hearing, Clemens denied under oath that he had taken steroids. In response, Waxman and the committee’s ranking Republican, Tom Davis of Virginia, sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice demanding a criminal investigation of Clemens for perjury. At press time a grand jury was considering charges against Clemens.

In the name of “cleaning up baseball,” Waxman and Davis are expanding government powers beyond their constitutional limits. Members of Congress have not offered many legal justifications for wielding the heavy hand of federal power against athletes whose only real wrongdoing amounts to violations of private rules or state laws. Though for baseball they do often cite a completely tangential law: The 1922 MLB exemption from antitrust rules.

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