Your Steroid Resource

DENVER (CBS4)

There wasn’t a Rockies game Tuesday morning, but 60 kids showed up at Coors Field to get some time on the field and learn about healthy living.

The “Play” campaign promotes a lifetime of activity for youth and they took their message to Coors Field with the help of some popular Rockies players. “Play” stands for Promoting a Lifetime of Activity for Youth.

The main theme of the event was to teach kids why they need to always steer clear of steroids. National speaker Don Hooten explained that they pushed his son to suicide.

“Taylor Hooten; he started using steroids and six months later he died,” Don Hooten said. “He had just turned 17 years old.”

Hooten’s message about steroids made an impression.

“It can be really bad for you and it can make you die,” one of the participants said.

The athletes also got a chance to encourage the youngsters to get off the couch.

“I’m just assuming since we are playing a lot more video games, a lot of kids are not getting out as much as we used to,” Ryan Spilborghs said.

Overall, the event was a big “hit.”

“I want to do this again next year,” another youngster said.

A Jefferson City man pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to possessing with the intent to distribute anabolic steroids and faces a possible five-year prison sentence.

Jason Varner, 34, pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge William Knox to the charge in an Oct. 18 federal indictment, U.S. Attorney John Wood announced in a news release.

Varner was charged in Operation Raw Deal, last year’s international investigation targeting the trafficking of anabolic steroids and its raw materials, mainly from China.

A former Columbia resident, 38-year-old Bryan Wilson of Kansas City, and his ex-wife, April Wilson, 32, of Columbia, also face federal charges in connection with the investigation, which is believed to be the country’s largest steroid enforcement action.

Varner was arrested Sept. 19 at a commuter parking lot off Route AC while allegedly delivering steroids to a source cooperating with investigators.

Law enforcement officers later found 44 vials of anabolic steroids in Varner’s residence, the news release said.

Under federal laws, Varner could be sentenced to as much as five years without parole plus a fine of as much as $250,000, the news release said.

By JASON BROWN
Advocate Acadiana bureau
Published: Jul 23, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

The St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office seized $15,000 worth of anabolic steroids and arrested four people during an undercover operation targeting steroid use in gyms around the parish.

Sheriff Bobby Guidroz said that a seven-month investigation has identified at least 100 users — some of them high school students — and 15 steroids dealers.

“This is the largest steroid seizure in St. Landry Parish history,” Guidroz said Tuesday.

Anabolic steroids are illegal drugs known widely as performance enhancing supplements. They help speed injury recovery and increase muscle mass. Steroids have also been the topic of several high profile investigations in the professional sports arena.

Detectives gathered information that dealers were selling to people varying in age from 17 to 50 years old. Some of those investigated were high school students.

“More arrests are forthcoming,” Guidroz said.

Those arrested varied from people who were unemployed to those who worked for huge companies, Guidroz said while declining to release the names of those companies.

“A lot are professional people who certainly know better,” Guidroz said.

Over the course of the investigation, detectives purchased and seized about 60 bottles of anabolic steroids in liquid form and about 600 doses in pill form. Most were ordered online and some originated in Mexico, according to a news release.

Arrested by deputies were:

* Ty Johnson, of Eunice, for distribution of steroids, possession with intent to distribute steroids, illegal carrying of weapons, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession with intent to distribute Lortab.

* Holly Fontenot, of Eunice, for possession with intent to distribute steroids, illegal carrying of weapons, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession with intent to distribute Lortab and obstruction of justice.

* Adrian Savoie, of Opelousas, for possession with intent to distribute steroids, possession of drug paraphernalia (two counts) and possession of steroids.

* Terri A. Kirkpatrick, of Opelousas, for possession of Lidocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia.

The ages of the four arrested were not immediately available.

More warrants have been issued but arrests have not been made.

BY CHRISTIAN RED and MICHAEL O’KEEFFE
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITERS

Tuesday, November 20th 2007, 9:46 AM

Spurred by Barry Bonds’ indictment, a congressional panel that looked at sports and steroids two years ago may reexamine the issue as early as January. But the committee that held the most infamous hearing plans to sit this one out, and congressional insiders say the fury over the issue of performance-enhancing drugs has waned on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), the chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, said he may schedule hearings early next year to review the progress Major League Baseball and other sports have made in battling steroid use. The panel’s ranking member, Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), also called for hearings and said retired Sen. George Mitchell, who is conducting an investigation into steroids and baseball on behalf of commissioner Bud Selig, should expedite the release of his much-anticipated report.

Mitchell has not set a date for its release but has said it would be made public by the end of the year.

“A criminal investigation found evidence of the use of steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs by Bonds and others and led to the indictment of Bonds,” said Stearns, who held steroid hearings when he was the subcommittee’s chairman in 2005 and sponsored legislation to establish tougher testing and penalties for sports leagues. “In light of this indictment, former Sen. Mitchell should expedite the release of his report so that we can better understand the extent of steroid use in Major League Baseball.”

The Government Reform Committee - the House watchdog panel that held the March 2005 hearing when Mark McGwire repeatedly said “I’m not here to talk about the past” - does not plan any further hearings.

One Capitol Hill source said the committee chairman, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), is wary of holding hearings that could influence the outcome of the government’s prosecution of Bonds on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Another congressional source said steroids - about the only issue that brought Republicans and Democrats together in 2005 - no longer generates the same level of interest on Capitol Hill that it did two years ago. That’s partly because some lawmakers believe the issue already has been scrutinized. But mostly, other issues - most notably the Iraq war and the 2008 election - have pushed it to the back burner.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, print and television reporters camped out in the light rain outside the Phillip Burton Federal Building following an inaccurate report that the home run king would turn himself in to authorities to be fingerprinted and photographed. But according to Natalya LaBauve, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco, Bonds is not required to make an appearance at the court building until Dec. 7, when he will be arraigned..

November 18, 2007
BY MIKE HUTTON Post-Tribune staff writer

If the Feds get him, I won’t feel any sense of satisfaction.

The steroid problem in baseball is so deep and rooted in the fabric of the game over the last 20 years, that to throw Barry Bonds out there as some kind of scapegoat for HGH, anabolic steroids or name-your-designer-drug-of-choice seems a little ridiculous.

Here is Bonds’ problem. He was too good. Too good at hitting mammoth home runs and presumably too good at shooting himself up with whatever he used to get bigger and stronger. Just maybe, if he only hit 550 home runs or so, he wouldn’t be subject to this willy-nilly witch hunt.

He, of course, isn’t the only one in baseball that used steroids.

Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clements, Rafael Palmiero, Gary Sheffield, Mike Piazza.

Those are at the top of my suspected list of steroid abusers, along with Bonds. There are dozens of others, too. You know it. I know it. The Feds know it and the people that run baseball know it.

Give me one good reason that Bonds should take the fall for a generation of steroid users. The fact that he allegedly lied to a grand jury is a problem, I admit.

My question then is this: Can we put Donald Fehr, Bud Selig and the baseball owners away for 10 years, too, for being complicit co-conspirators in the great big steroid problem? When will they convene grand juries for those folks?

They loved the towering home runs, just like the fans who spilled into the ballparks loved it when the seams split on those baseballs as they traveled out of the park.

They snickered when Sosa told us he was taking nothing stronger than Flintstones vitamins and then went on with their day after Sosa popped another one out of Wrigley Field.

Bonds gets busted because he’s angry and surly and uncooperative and way too prideful for his own good. And because he broke Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record.

But that makes him no more guilty than the rest of them.

There is nothing to be gained from locking up Bonds.

This isn’t like assault and battery. As far as I know, Bonds didn’t hurt anyone — except himself and the integrity of the game. Start writing down names if that qualifies as a condition for getting thrown into the slammer. It’s a long list.

You can’t go back and replay the last couple of decades of baseball. It’s done. It’s over with. It was bad. It was a really, really messed up time in the game. It’s impossible though to say you are going to bring justice against one guy.

Baseball needs to fight hard for the blood test for HGH. They need to continue to be as punitive as possible with players who use steroids.

The Feds, meanwhile, need to drop this whole charade. It’s a waste of time and it will do nothing to make up for what damage has already been incurred.

Bonds will pay for his sins perpetually in the public eye. Already, we make judgements on his prodigious home run totals. We look at him cynically and sigh, knowing that something wasn’t quite right about what happened.

That is punishment enough.

Contact Mike Hutton at 648-3139 or mhutton@post-trib.com