Article: Feds to use 2003 drug test results

[Phistar]

Identities of 104 players who failed in 2003 could be revealed

Federal prosecutors may seek to question each of the 104 players who failed Major League Baseball's survey drug test in 2003, about how and where they obtained the substances detected in their urine samples, the New York Times reported on Sunday.


The 4-year-old tests were seized by federal authorities and have been held in abeyance as a case pressed by MLB's Players Association has been on appeal.

In January, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said it would revisit a previous decision, allowing the federal government to seize the drug tests in question, and also ruled at the time that federal investigators could continue to utilize the names and samples until it ruled otherwise.

The Times reported that, according to an anonymous lawyer, if the appellate court declines to change its ruling, the office of the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California would interview the players. That office would then disseminate that information to other federal attorneys throughout the country in its continued crackdown on who is distributing performance-enhancing drugs to athletes.

In a case that has been ongoing for a number of years, the appellate court, which previously had overruled three decisions handed down by lower courts, has been reviewing the matter again for four months and may be nearing a decision. The U.S. Supreme Court, if asked, could then agree to hear the case or simply deny the request, thus ending the matter.

At issue is the right of the federal government to seize tests administered by MLB that were supposed to be protected by privacy clauses in its joint drug policy with the union. Those tests, administered without threat of penalty in 2003 -- the first year of random testing under the current policy -- were utilized to determine the incidence of drug use at the Major League level that season. When 5-to-7 percent of the tests came back positive, punitive testing went into effect in 2004.

Those 2003 tests were numbered, sent to a clinic for analysis, and ultimately were supposed to be destroyed by the union. But before the latter could take place, federal prosecutors investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative after it was raided in 2003, issued warrants and seized the tests.

Subsequently, names were linked with the numbers of the players to determine who had tested positive, and the Players Association advised those players that the government had seized the tests. None of those names has been made public yet and the union sued to prevent the feds from utilizing the records, arguing in court that seizing the tests was a breach of each players' right to personal privacy.
At the outset, the federal government was seeking the tests of 10 baseball players, who testified before a grand jury in the BALCO case nearly five years ago, including all-time home run leader Barry Bonds, who is facing 14 counts of perjury and one of obstruction of justice for allegedly lying in his grand jury testimony about using performance-enhancing drugs.


The next hearing in Bonds' case is scheduled for federal court in San Francisco on June 6.

But during the raid, the feds seized the samples of all 104 players who had tested positive, stipulating that those names could not be separated from the others on a computer hard drive.

Under the rules of MLB's joint drug policy at the time, Quest Diagnostics of Teterboro, N.J., analyzed some 1,400 urine samples taken from players in 2004. Comprehensive Drug Testing of Long Beach, Calif., collected the specimens and compiled the data.

Those tasks have since been transferred to U.S. Anti-Doping Agency-approved labs in Montreal and California.

By Barry M. Bloom / MLB.com
Barry M. Bloom is a national reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

[Chubz]

Thats the list that people want to see, not the shit one Sen Mitchell compiled

[Phistar]

do you think that they'll release the full list to the public?

unless only insiders will know and that it'll leak out through espn or something?

or it'll remain a secret...