Court rules feds are entitled to baseball steroid testing data, By: David Kravets and Paul Elias
December 27, 2006
The names and urine samples of about 100 Major League Baseball players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs three years ago can be used by government investigators in their probe of steroids in sports, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The 2-1 ruling could help authorities pinpoint the source of steroids in baseball and could also bolster the perjury case against star outfielder Barry Bonds, who is under investigation for telling a grand jury he never knowingly used performance enhancing drugs.
Investigators seized computer files containing the test results in 2004 during raids of labs involved in the Major League Baseball testing program. The samples had been collected by the league the previous year as part of a survey to gauge the prevalence of steroid use. Baseball players and owners agreed in their labor contract that the results would be confidential, and each player was assigned a code number to be matched with his name.
Quest Diagnostics of Teterboro, N.J., one of the largest drug-testing firms in the nation, analyzed more than 1,400 urine samples from players that season. Comprehensive Drug Testing of Long Beach coordinated the collection of specimens and compiled the data.
Armed with data from both labs, government officials can now match the positive test samples with the players' names. Those players could then be called before a grand jury and asked where they obtained their steroids. If enough testify that they got the drugs from Bonds' personal trainer, Greg Anderson, it could undermine Bonds' claim that he didn't know Anderson was supplying him with illegal substances.
Anderson is currently in prison for refusing to testify in the perjury probe. He was previously convicted of steroids distribution.
Bonds has always maintained he never tested positive for illegal drug use, but federal investigators demanded to see the 2003 test results for Bonds, then-New York Yankees Gary Sheffield and Jason Giambi, and seven other players.
When they raided the testing labs for those 10 results, investigators also seized computer files containing the test results of nearly 100 other players not named in the governments subpoena and warrants.
Bonds' attorney, Michael Rains, didn't return calls for comment.
The testing was part of baseball's effort to determine whether a stricter drug-testing policy was needed. Because 5 percent or more of the tests for steroids came back positive, it automatically triggered the start of testing with penalties in 2004.
Subpoenas were issued to Quest and CDT in late 2003, a day before the test results were to be destroyed, and in April 2004 Internal Revenue Service agents seized the results and samples. It's unclear whether the data seized includes test results or specimens from Bonds.
The Major League Baseball Players Union sued to keep the government from accessing the records, saying the seizures violated the constitutional rights of the players.
The 120-page decision from the appellate panel rejects that claim, and overturns three separate rulings from lower court judges in Los Angeles, Nevada and San Francisco.
The key opinion, which says federal prosecutors are entitled to the urine samples and names of those who tested positive, overturns a ruling by San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, who sided with the players union and quashed the subpoenas, saying they constituted harassment and were therefore unreasonable.
"The district court rested its order on legally insufficient grounds, and abused its discretion in granting the motion to quash," Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain wrote for the 9th Circuit.
In dissent, Judge Sidney R. Thomas voted to uphold Illston, writing that the government's action "suggests an abuse of grand jury process."
The players union can now ask for a new hearing before the full 9th Circuit or appeal the panel's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The union's general counsel, Michael Weiner, declined to immediately comment, wanting first to review the decision.
The government's investigation of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a now-defunct Burlingame supplements lab at the center of the steroid scandal, has already netted guilty pleas from BALCO president Victor Conte, Bonds' personal trainer Anderson, BALCO vice president James Valente, chemist Patrick Arnold and track coach Remi Korchemny.
The case is United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing Inc., 05-10067.
