Perhaps a few agents might be more interested in making their clients are buff more than anything — well, of course besides the bucks and getting share…
A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday charged that unidentified agents for baseball players steered clients to a California physician linked in media reports to supplying Troy Glaus and Scott Schoeneweis with illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
No players or agents were mentioned by name in the 11-count indictment returned by a grand jury against Dr. Ramon Scruggs and two of his alleged associates at the New Hope Health Center in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Schoeneweis is represented by Scott Boras, and Glaus by Mike Nicotera.
“I have no knowledge of this medical practitioner or any relationship that he has with any of our clients,” Boras said. “We have never referred any of our clients to a wellness center.”
Nicotera did not respond to a telephone message or e-mail.
…The indictment, dated March 5, was unsealed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif. It contains counts involving distribution of steroids, conspiracy, misbranding drugs, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment covers activity from September 2000 to May 2003, and charges the defendants with illegally distributing drugs to baseball players, law-enforcement officers and others.
“It was a further part of the conspiracy that, on occasion, sports representation agents for professional baseball players referred their client-players to defendants Scruggs, Danto and MacPherson for the purpose of obtaining anabolic steroids and other drugs which those individuals knew to be banned by Major League Baseball and therefore unavailable to the players through lawful medical channels absent the illegal prescriptions provided by Scruggs,” the indictment said.
Major League Baseball said on Dec. 6 there was insufficient evidence to penalize Glaus or Schoeneweis for any violation of the sport’s drug agreement with the players’ association. Rob Manfred, MLB’s executive vice president for labor relations, declined comment on the indictment as did Gene Orza, the union’s chief operating officer.
Signature has been under investigation by the district attorney in Albany, N.Y.
A stipulated decision of the Medical Board of California on March 2, 2007, said that without any admissions, Scruggs was placed on 35 months probation. He was charged with “violating federal or state drug statutes, prescribing over the Internet without a prior good faith examination and medical indication, repeated negligent acts, gross negligence, incompetence, and failure to maintain adequate and accurate medical records in the care and treatment of multiple patients; and unprofessional conduct by failing to take a board-ordered examination.”
Yikes. What the hell?
