BALCO steroid chemist jailed, By: Adam Tanner
August 05,
A UNITED STATES federal judge sentenced the Illinois chemist who devised a steroid at the centre of the BALCO sports doping scandal to three months in jail overnight.
Judge Susan Illston accepted a plea deal agreement of three months prison followed by three months home detention as part of a two-year supervised release program for Patrick Arnold, known as the "father of prohormones", which are steroid-like substances.
The punishment was the same as baseball star Barry Bonds' personal trainer received last year for steroid distribution in the BALCO affair, which has tarred the reputations of top athletes in track and field, baseball and football.
Judge Illston last year sentenced the head of the BALCO lab to four months jail, four months home confinement.
"It's a really destructive path you have been on," Judge Illston told Arnold during the sentencing hearing, adding the doping scandal has been "damaging to the nation as a whole."
Arnold saidhe plans on leading a "nice clean life" after serving his sentence and apologised for his role in the doping scandal.
"I am very regretful for what I've done," he said.
Nanci Clarence, Arnold's lawyer, ruled out the possibility he would help prosecutors by sharing his knowledge of steroids.
"He is not cooperating," Ms Clarence said after the sentencing.
In April, Arnold admitted guilt to one count of conspiring to distribute steroids.
He concocted the steroid known as "Clear" or THG (tetrahydrogestrinone) that had enabled pro athletes to boost their performance without detection.
According to the federal indictment last year, Arnold synthesised THG from gestrinone, a steroid for which he paid $US10,800 ($14,220) in China and then sent the refashioned substance to California-based BALCO and others.
Officials only gained the ability to detect Clear after a track coach in 2003 sent a used syringe to the US Anti-Doping Agency. Only new testing developed afterward was able to detect use of the drug.
The BALCO scandal continues to take a toll.
On Thursday, the trainer that sent in the discarded syringe, Trevor Graham, was banned from using US Olympic Committee training centres and facilities. Earlier, one of his trainees, Olympic and 100-meter champion Justin Gatlin failed a test for testosterone or its precursors.
San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds, who is playing mediocre baseball this year, is also still the subject of a grand jury probe into whether he lied in BALCO testimony about any past association with steroids.
