BALCO figure Trevor Graham was sentenced to 12 months house arrest for lying to a federal investigator about his relationship with steroid dealer Angel Heredia. Graham was the track coach who blew the whistle on the undetectable anabolic steroid THG distributed to elite athletes by BALCO mastermind Victor Conte. It seems that federal prosecutors were attempting to use the perjury laws to make an example out Trevor Graham for his involvement with doping in sports.

U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston rejected the government’s request for a 10-month prison sentence for Graham, much like she rejected the feds’ 30-month prison sentence for Tammy Thomas. Both BALCO figures have avoided prison. Barry Bonds and Dana Stubblefield seem likely to avoid prison as well; they are awaiting sentencing by Judge Illston.

Ironically, the anti-doping measures specifically designed to keep anabolic steroids out of sports, namely the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1991 and anti-doping testing of athletes, were ineffective at catching the BALCO athletes. They were caught due to non-analytical positives related to the BALCO investigation; perjury laws were apparently misused to punish them for their doping crimes.

Judge Illston wants no part in the government’s misguided steroid witch-hunt against athletes.

“I don’t view sending Mr. Graham to prison as a useful exercise,” U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston said in passing sentence.

Obviously, BALCO owner Victor Conte was upset that Trevor Graham avoided prison.

“I know that because I gave the drugs to him hand-to-hand on numerous occasions to give to athletes,” said Conte, who served four months, in part because Graham dropped a dime on BALCO. “My understanding is if he has home confinement, he gets to go to work, to church, to the barbershop. One of the things you don’t get to do when you go to a prison camp is you can’t work. I think Trevor got off easy.”

Travis Tygart, the head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was also upset that Graham did not go to prison.

“Christmas came early for Trevor Graham,” said Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, which banned Graham from coaching for life based on some of the same evidence presented at the trial.

In a phone interview, Tygart contrasted Graham’s sentence with the six-month prison term a federal judge in New York imposed on Jones, who pleaded guilty to lying to BALCO investigators about her steroid use and to an unrelated count of check fraud.

Anti-steroid crusaders had hoped that Judge Illston would be willing to make an example of the doping athletes she sentenced much like Judge Kenneth Karas seems to have done with Marion Jones.

He said he did not believe Jones had been completely forthcoming in her admission that she used drugs.

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…he said he took the matter of performance-enhancing drugs seriously. He said he wanted Jones to use her experiences to help young athletes avoid the choices she made.

“Athletes in society have an elevated status,” he said. “They entertain, they inspire and perhaps most importantly, they serve as role models for kids around the world. When there is this widespread level of cheating, it sends all the wrong messages to those who follow these athletes’ every move.”