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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
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De Zaak Arnold
Federal agents raid Illinois lab linked to BALCO steroid (San Francisco Chronicle September 30, 2005) Chemist suspected of creating drug called 'the clear'. Pat Arnold op vrije voeten (1-10-2005) Supplementenmaker maakt opgeluchte indruk. Chemist with ties to Balco indicted (Mercury News Nov. 03, 2005) ILLINOIS MAN ALLEGEDLY PROVIDED LAB WITH DRUGS. Illinois chemist charged with steroid distribution and misbranding performance enhancing drugs to avoid detection (US Attorney November 4, 2005) ‘Clearman’ tailored illegal drugs (AFP 05 November 06) Arnold Indicted (Baseball Toaster/The Juice Blog 2005-11-08) Arnold is not the only chemist that can make THG. He's not the only chemist smart enough to find the next steroid and market it. Illinois chemist pleads innocent on Balco-related charges (The Mercury News Nov. 09, 2005) Arnold, a chemist, and his lab considered to be the origin of BALCO (Chicago Tribune Nov. 13, 2005) Bumper crop of scandal raised in Ill. cornfields? (Union-Tribune November 28, 2005) BALCO chemist trial planning awaits defence review of evidence (Daily Times January 29, 2006) BALCO chemist 'to plead guilty' (Reuters April 28, 2006)
BALCO Supplier of 'The Clear' Reaches Deal (AP Apr 27, 2006) BALCO Supplier of 'The Clear' Said to Reach Deal to Plead Guilty in Federal Court. Arnold leverde aan atleten en coaches, krijgt drie maanden cel en drie maanden huisarrest (Bloomberg 2006 April 28) Arnold deed direct zaken met Tzekos (San Francisco Chronicle April 28, 2006) Arnold wist dat Conte ook deed in The Cream, GH, EPO, modafinil, Clomid en anabolen (US Attorney Apr 29, 2006)
3 0 - 0 9 - 2 0 0 5 Federal agents raid Illinois lab linked to BALCO steroid
Chemist suspected of creating drug called 'the clear'
Mark Fainaru-Wada
San Francisco Chronicle Federal agents Thursday raided an Illinois laboratory where the steroid that ignited the BALCO scandal is suspected to have been created -- signaling that the three-year investigation is continuing.
In raids led by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation division, search warrants were served on the Champaign, Ill., offices and home of chemist Patrick Arnold, who authorities believe produced the steroid that came to be known as "the clear" in the BALCO case. A spokeswoman for IRS-CI's Chicago office confirmed the agency was on "official business" in Champaign but offered no further details. Lt. Ed Ogle of the Champaign County sheriff's office said his agency had assisted authorities on a raid at Proviant Technologies, Arnold's lab in downstate Illinois. And two sources with knowledge of the raids confirmed to The Chronicle that warrants had been served both on the lab and on Arnold's home. Both IRS-CI and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -- the two agencies primarily involved in the raids on BALCO two years ago in Burlingame -- participated in the Illinois actions, according to Kerry Hannigan, a special agent with IRS-CI in Chicago. Hannigan said all documents related to the "official business" were sealed. Arnold's name has been connected to the BALCO case for some time. During the September 2003 raids on BALCO, owner Victor Conte and vice president James Valente both identified Arnold as the source of the once-undetectable steroid called "the clear," according to government memorandums detailing the interviews. Conte, Valente, track coach Remi Korchemny and Greg Anderson, personal trainer for Barry Bonds, recently pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges and are awaiting sentencing next month. Despite the plea agreements, a San Francisco federal grand jury has continued to hear testimony stemming from the BALCO probe, according to two sources familiar with Arnold and the case. In addition, just as they had in the months preceding raids on BALCO, federal agents had been digging through Arnold's trash seeking evidence, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. Neither Arnold nor his attorney responded to messages seeking comment. Even before BALCO broke, Arnold was suspected by anti-doping officials as the man who resurrected the steroid norbolethone, a drug that was manufactured in the 1960s but never marketed to the public. The substance was discovered in the urine sample of an athlete in 2002. Based on e-mails and documents seized in the BALCO case, authorities believe norbolethone was the first generation of "the clear" distributed by Conte to elite athletes. By the time of the BALCO raids in 2003, "the clear" was a newly designed steroid called tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG. The various versions of "the clear" were administered by placing a couple of drops under the tongue. A 2001 e-mail from Arnold to Conte appeared to indicate the chemist was sending the BALCO chief the latest version of the substance. "What I am sending you today is a small sample, about 5 ccs, of the supplement," Arnold wrote to Conte on Feb. 9, 2001. Arnold wrote that he had "made" very little of the substance, but there "should be enough for experimental testing. 2.5-7.5 milligram (whatever that comes out to in cc's or drops), under the tongue should be a decent dosing range." Within the supplement industry, Arnold is known as the "father of prohormones," most famous for bringing androstenedione to the American market. Andro, though banned by the National Football League and the Olympics because it was a steroid precursor, was popularized in 1998 when St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire acknowledged using it during the season when he broke baseball's single-season home run record. Three years later, Bonds broke McGwire's record, and two years after that the Giants slugger became part of the evolving BALCO scandal. 1-10-2005 Pat Arnold op vrije voeten
Patrick Arnold, de vermeende maker van designeranabolen als THG en DMT, is niet opgepakt. Hij postte gisteren nog op het forum van bodybuilding.com. Het eerste berichtje van Arnold dat na de inval op de boards verscheen vind je hier. (forum.bodybuilding.com)
Arnold maakte een opgeluchte indruk. "On top of everything, I broke a nail this morning", schrijft hij. “It’s a enough to make even tough girl break down and curl up with a box of hankies and sob all night.”
De agenten kwamen donderdag om tien uur 'morgens, vertelt hij. Bij hem thuis bleven ze een paar uur. Op zijn laboratorium vertrokken ze pas om acht uur 's avonds. Zich zorgen maken doet hij niet. "I keep no scheduled drugs in any form at my company."
Arnold maakt van de gelegenheid gebruik om zijn nieuwe supplement, Ergolean AMP, te promoten. Hij adviseert gebruikers het product alvast te hamsteren. "AMP may be gone quite soon because of this", post hij. "So it's wise to stock up."
Ergolean AMP is een stimulerende stack van cafeïne, een extract uit cacao met theobromine en theofylline, en een extract uit geraniumolie. De cafeïne en de xanthines uit chocolade stimuleren de stofwisseling in de cel. Over het effect van de geraniumolie zou zijn durven we niets te zeggen. Neem je het apart, dan heeft het volgens Google een kalmerend effect. Misschien maskeert het de werking van de andere stoffen. 0 4 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 Chemist with ties to Balco indicted
ILLINOIS MAN ALLEGEDLY PROVIDED LAB WITH DRUGS
By Sean Webby Federal prosecutors Thursday announced steroid-distribution charges against a bodybuilding guru from Illinois who allegedly created the now-infamous steroid ``the clear'' -- one of the drugs that triggered the Balco investigation. Patrick Arnold -- the 39-year-old chemist nicknamed ``The Clearman'' by Balco founder Victor Conte Jr. -- was charged with three felony counts of steroid distribution and drug misbranding by the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Francisco. No court date is scheduled. Arnold allegedly sent designer drugs to Conte and a track coach in Greece and wired money to China for raw materials to make steroids, authorities said. Arnold's lawyers vowed to fight the charges. ``Patrick Arnold is a respected chemist and researcher in the field of nutritional supplements,'' San Francisco attorney Nanci Clarence said in a news release. ``He is not guilty and will defend these charges vigorously in a court of law, not in the press.'' Said U.S. attorney Kevin Ryan in a statement: ``Today, we have taken another important step in the ongoing effort to eliminate the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs in sports. We remain steadfast in our commitment to prosecuting those individuals involved in the distribution of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.'' Thursday's indictment comes less than three weeks after Conte and two other Bay Area men were sentenced for their roles in the illegal doping ring for elite athletes, run from an obscure Burlingame lab. That scandal has resulted in congressional calls for federal drug testing and questions about the athletic accomplishments of Giants slugger Barry Bonds and Olympic track star Marion Jones, both implicated as steroid users but not charged. Ryan had handed out a firm ``no comment'' to questions about whether last month's sentencing meant the end of the Balco case. Arnold's indictment is at least part of Ryan's answer. The Bay Area's top prosecutor would not say whether more were forthcoming. Arnold is known for bringing androstenedione, the steroid precursor used by former St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire, to the United States. The charges against him revolve around the creation and distribution of steroids designed to fly beneath the chemical radars of drug testers in the major professional sports and track and field. Details of the investigation are included in an affidavit written by Janet Laine, a special agent of the Food and Drug Administration, in seeking a search warrant before a raid on Arnold's home and lab last month. It alleges Arnold created and sent out a potent trio of steroids: norbolethone; tetrahydrogestrinone, also called THG and the clear; and desoxy-methyl testosterone, or DMT, a drug found at Balco and also seized by Canadian border agents last year. THG was the chemical that set off the Balco scandal. In June 2003, a track coach later identified as Trevor Graham anonymously sent a used syringe containing an unknown substance to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. The substance was later identified as THG, which led investigators and anti-doping forces to begin jointly looking into Balco. Arnold was first connected to Balco in 2003, according to Laine, when the case's lead investigator, Jeff Novitzky, discovered e-mails between Conte and a Greek track coach in which Conte refers to THG as the clear and refers to Arnold as The Clearman. In 2003, when federal agents raided Conte's lab and home as part of the Balco investigation, the Balco founder reportedly told them that Arnold had sent him the drugs. Arnold also regularly shared his steroid expertise on Internet message boards, the affidavit said, boasting that he knew how to make virtually every steroid ``by heart'' and even thumbing his nose at the possibility of legal trouble. Arnold allegedly wrote: ``Really as much as the feds want to make an example of me, with the way the law has been written there is not much that can be done.'' The maximum penalty for each of the two conspiracy charges is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. For the misbranding charge, it is three years in prison and a $250,000 fine. 0 3 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 Illinois chemist charged with steroid distribution and misbranding performance enhancing drugs to avoid detection
Friday, November 4, 2005 Attorney Kevin V. Ryan announced that a federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted Patrick Arnold, of Champaign, Illinois, today on a 3-count indictment charging 1) conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids, 2) conspiracy to defraud consumers and the United States by introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, and 3) introduction and delivery of the misbranded drug tetrahydragestrinone, also known as “The Clear” and THG, into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead. This indictment is the result of an investigation by IRS–Criminal Investigation and the Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations. According to the indictment, Mr. Arnold, 39, an organic chemist and prohormone manufacturer in Champaign, Illinois, is charged with conspiring with Victor Conte, the President of the Bay Area Lab Cooperative (Balco), and others to misbrand and to distribute the following drugs to professional athletes without adequate labeling, directions, and warnings regarding its use: Norbolethone, Tetrahydragestrinone, a.k.a. THG, and “The Clear,” and Desoxymethyltestosterone, a.k.a. DMT and “Madol” According to the indictment, it was further part of the conspiracy to defraud that the defendant attempted to conceal his illegal activities by trafficking specifically in drugs that were designed to avoid detection by the governing bodies of various sports, such as the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, Major League Baseball, and the National Football League.
The affidavit also describes email exchanges between Victor Conte and Andreas Linardatos, a Greek track and field coach, which discuss the need to discontinue using THG because a sample was sent to testing authorities and it was likely that authorities would begin testing for the drug.
The affidavit further alleges
shipments of THG to another Greek track and field coach, Chris
Tsekos (erroneously identified in the affidavit as “Chris
Thickest”).
According to the affidavit, an email from Patrick
Arnold to Victor Conte discusses the positive test by a female
cyclist for Norbolethone, and the suggestion to tell athletes
to stop using the drug.
Mr. Arnold is not in custody, and an initial appearance has
not yet been scheduled.
The maximum statutory penalty for each count of conspiracy to
distribute and possess with intent to distribute anabolic
steroids, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 and 841(b)(1)(D), is
five years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. The maximum
statutory penalty for the count of conspiracy to defraud the
United States through the introduction and delivery of
misbranded drugs with intent to defraud and mislead, in
violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, is five years in prison and a
$250,000 fine. The maximum statutory penalty for the count of
introduction and delivery of misbranded drugs with intent to
defraud and mislead, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 331(a) is
three years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. However, any
sentence following conviction would be imposed by the Court
after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the
federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18
U.S.C. 3553.
An indictment contains only allegations against an individual
and, as with all defendants, Mr. Arnold must be presumed
innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Jeff Nedrow, Matt Parrella, and Jeff Finigan are the Assistant
U.S. Attorney’s who are prosecuting the case with the
assistance of Susan Kreider. The prosecution is the result of
an investigation by the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations
and IRS–Criminal Investigation.
0 6 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 ‘Clearman’ tailored illegal drugs
New Straits Times SAN FRANCISCO: A sports world steroid scandal leapt back to life in the United States on Thursday with the indictment of an organic chemist identified as "Clearman" who allegedly tailored illegal drugs for athletes.
Court documents linked chemist Patrick Arnold, Greek track coach Andreas Linardatos, body builder Milos Sarcev and others to a ring that reportedly peddled hard-to-trace blood doping drugs. Arnold conspired with the president of Bay Area Lab Cooperative (BALCO) near San Francisco to distribute stealth drugs to athletes, US Attorney Kevin Ryan said in a statement. A federal judge sentenced BALCO founder and president Victor Conte last month to four months in prison and an identical amount of time under house arrest as the result of a plea bargain with prosecutors. Greg Anderson, who served as a personal trainer to US baseball slugger Barry Bonds, was sentenced to three months in prison and BALCO vice president James Valente received three years probation in separate plea deals. BALCO clients reportedly included elite athletes such as sprinters Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and baseball players Bonds and Jason Giambi. "(Athletes) were cheating and you helped them do that. You were complicit in the cheating," Judge Susan Illston told Conte at the sentencing hearing. Information gathered during the BALCO investigation led federal agents to identify Arnold as "Clearman," who designed and manufactured the illegal performance drug in the state of Illinois, according to Ryan. "Today, we have taken another important step in the ongoing effort to eliminate the use of illegal performance enhancing drugs in sports," Ryan said in a written release. In copies of e-mail filed in court, Conte told Linardatos to advise a client identified only as "Olga" to stop using a drug called "the clear" because Trevor Graham, Tim Montgomery and John Smith sent a sample to Olympics committee testers anonymously. "This is very unfortunate," Conte wrote in the August of 2002 e-mail. "I have someone on the inside that recently gave me a heads-up regarding this matter." In a February 2000 e-mail exchange with Arnold, Sarcev expressed interest in designer supplements and diuretics for an imminent competition. "Let me know where to send money, gold or kidneys," Sarcev replied after Arnold quoted him a price of 100 dollars a gram for "miracle stuff" called Norbolethone. "I can over night it." Sarcev offered himself as "a good guinea pig" because he had "tried everything" and added he worked "with many other monkeys (that would like to become gorillas)." Bank records in the court paperwork listed payments Arnold sent to an account under the name of Sun Chang Sheng at the Bank of China. Arnold, 39, was charged as being a "prohormone manufacturer" in cahoots with Conte to distribute performance enhancers Norbolethone, Tetrahydragesterinone (The Clear), and Desoxymethyltestosterone (DMT or Madol). 0 9 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 Arnold Indicted
Baseball Toaster/The Juice Blog In the world of bodybuilding and nutritional supplements, there's still only one Arnold. There is however another one, Patrick Arnold, who keeps coming up in conversations, discussions, and now, indictments. Victor Conte mentioned him and how Arnold allegedly supplied him with THG, a heretofor uncreated steroid-like compound, that Conte then distributed to athletes. Arnold may be best known now for THG or for his other supplements at his well-known companies. If you wander around the steroid underground, Arnold, in his various guises screen names, is often in the heat of discussion, often with other chemists and supplement researchers. The BALCO case has focused on Arnold for quite a while and the recent indictment shows just how weak the case is. He is charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. Assuming they can prove that the facts as laid out by Conte in his statements are true - and would you want to build a case on Conte's credibility? - then you have to admit that THG was not a controlled substance at the time. There was no catch-all language in the Anabolic Steroid Control Act, as was added in 2005. If Arnold created THG, if he sold it to Conte, and if THG is an effective steroid - all things that could be argued, some more than others - there's still no way to connect Arnold to the distribution. Certainly, you could argue that Arnold was selling to a middleman who's sole purpose was to distribute and that sale itself was distribution. I'll leave that to the lawyers. I'll remind people that Arnold was also the mastermind behind androstendione, the substance that was legally used by Mark McGwire and hundreds of others. Andro's dubious efficacy had left it at the side of the road for bodybuilders, but it led to other pro-hormones and hormone precursors. Between andro and THG, Arnold has certainly left his mark on baseball, allegedly. Breaking BALCO -- which this has thus far failed to do - doesn't address the other five to ten organizations and clubs that do the same thing BALCO did. They test athletes for supplementation using standard lab tests, then sell both valid nutritional supplements and (knowingly or unknowingly) increase the results with steroids. Arnold is not the only chemist that can make THG. He's not the only chemist smart enough to find the next steroid and market it. He's not even the man that formulated "the cream," the other BALCO-supplied performance-enhancer. Naming names and indictments haven't slowed the problem. Sitting at a table with Rick Collins, Tracy Olrich, and Denise Garibaldi showed me that there is a middle ground, one where we can solve the problem. My next article, likely at Mesomorphosis.com, will talk more about this. 1 0 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 Illinois chemist pleads innocent on Balco-related charges
Wed, Nov. 09, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO - A chemist from Illinois pleaded not guilty in federal court in San Francisco today to charges of conspiring with the founder of a Burlingame laboratory to give illegal performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes. Patrick Arnold, 39, of Champaign, Ill., was indicted by a federal grand jury in San Francisco last week on charges of conspiring with Victor Conte, president of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. Conte pleaded guilty in July to conspiring to distribute anabolic steroids to professional athletes and money laundering. He was sentenced last month to four months in prison and four months' home detention. Three other men pleaded guilty to various charges in the BALCO case and under plea agreements have received or will receive sentences ranging from probation to six months' confinement. U.S. Magistrate Edward Chen today allowed Arnold to remain free on a $100,000 bond while awaiting trial. Chen tentatively set a court date of Nov. 30 for Arnold to appear before U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney. The case may be transferred, however, to U.S. District Judge Susan Illston, the jurist who presided over the BALCO case. Federal prosecutors have requested the transfer but a decision has not yet been made. Arnold is accused in the indictment of conspiring with Conte and unnamed other people to distribute two steroid drugs, including one known as `The Clear,` to athletes without required labels and warnings between 2000 and 2003.
He is also charged with intending to distribute a third drug (DMT? - red.) without required labels. The indictment alleges that Arnold trafficked in drugs that `were specifically designed to avoid detection as controlled substances and as banned substances by governing bodies of various sports.'' The three counts in the indictment carry a possible maximum sentence of 13 years in prison, but if Arnold is convicted his penalty would be determined after consideration of U.S. sentencing guidelines. 1 3 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 Arnold, a chemist, and his lab considered to be the origin of BALCO
BY DAVID HAUGH CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Visible from Interstate 57, down a bumpy road that becomes narrower than a lane of the Dan Ryan Expressway, surrounded by acres of farmland and a campground bordering a creek, a tan three-story stone building sits. A sign in the front lawn of the 40,000-square-foot facility identifies the address as 309 W. Hensley, but the name of the company, Proviant Technologies, is not obvious on any of the site's exterior walls. Champaign man: Respected chemist or designer of performance-enhancing drugs? The BALCO probe focuses on Patrick Arnold. The place blends quietly into a nook of northern Champaign County so remote that two young men felt comfortable enough one day last week during the noon hour to urinate in the middle of an adjacent cornfield, behind a tractor. The odometer says it is 130 miles from Chicago, but it feels farther.
In this setting is where the federal government believes the mother of international performance-enhancing drug scandals, BALCO - with arms that reach from here to San Francisco to China and Greece - was born. Inside the walls of Proviant's laboratory is where a federal indictment alleges Patrick Arnold, the Champaign chemist who invented "andro," illegally obtained anabolic steroids from China that he synthesized into a human-growth hormone and shipped to Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative founder Victor Conte, among others.
A federal grand jury in San Francisco representing the Northern District of California indicted Arnold, 39, on three counts of illegally distributing the drugs. Facing up to 13 years in prison and $750,000 in fines, Arnold entered a plea of not guilty Wednesday and was released on a $100,000 recognizance bond. "I don't want to talk about this, I can't, and my attorneys are the only ones you can talk to, so don't call me," an agitated Arnold said on the phone from his Champaign apartment. His San Francisco-based attorney, Nanci Clarence, called Arnold "a respected chemist and researcher in the field of nutritional supplements" who will be found not guilty. Others such as Don Catlin, the world-renowned founder of the Olympic Analytical Lab at UCLA, consider the indictment of Arnold the biggest development yet in the BALCO case. Catlin helped ignite the BALCO investigation in 2003 with the discovery of a syringe anonymously sent to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency that was filled with tetrahydragestrinone, or THG - also known as "the clear" and later linked to Arnold. "I think Conte is just the distributor - he doesn't make the things like Patrick Arnold can make things," said Catlin, known in the industry as the "doping detective." "So indicting Arnold is much more foundational and at the core of this issue than Conte was." Conte, the chief distributor in a scheme that implicated some of the sporting world's most elite athletes such as Marion Jones and Barry Bonds, was sentenced to four months in prison and four months' home confinement in a plea agreement. Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer, was sentenced to three months in jail and three months' home confinement for his role. Arnold, accused of misbranding and sending performance-enhancing drugs from Champaign to BALCO that were found in a storage locker rented to Conte, will continue his defense Nov. 30 during his next scheduled court appearance in San Francisco. He is the fifth person to be charged in the BALCO case. The company for which Arnold is listed as a secretary, Proviant Technologies, issued a statement after the indictment that said: "Patrick has a respected reputation as a chemist in the nutritional supplement industry ... (and) has always sought to conduct his business in a professional manner and strict adherence to the law." Proviant President Ramlakhan Boodram declined through a spokesman to discuss his relationship with Arnold, and attempts to contact any colleagues at the business were stymied at the main entrance. "Visitor by appointment only," a sign read. Asked if arranging such an appointment were possible, a receptionist replied as she shut the door firmly, "I'm sorry, there is nobody from our office who is going to be talking to you today." 'Doesn't make any sense' Joseph Arnold, Patrick's father, who lives in Guilford, Conn., was even less enthusiastic about defending his youngest son publicly. He professes to believe in his innocence but was loathe to elaborate the reasons why over the phone because of lessons he says he learned during the investigation. "I think I've had my phone tapped, so I'm very wary of these kind of calls," Joseph Arnold said. "He's a wonderful young man, a perfect gentleman who would not be inclined to do the things he's accused of. It doesn't make any sense." Raised in a home where both parents were school administrators, Arnold was a high school wrestler who became a bodybuilder but quickly gained notice for his brainpower as much as his brawn. He graduated from the University of New Haven with a degree in chemistry that led him toward a career as a synthetic-organic chemist for a noted chemical company. Arnold was working and living in his parents' home in Connecticut when Stan Antosh, then the chief executive officer of a supplements lab in Palm Springs, Calif., offered him a job at Osmo as a researcher at the recommendation of a friend even before meeting him in person. Not long after he was hired, Arnold devoted hours to translating German patents and came across the formula for a nasal spray made up partly of androstenedione, a hormone the former East German Olympic team used to build strength in athletes. China also produced the chemical in large quantities. Deregulation in the supplement industry in the mid-1990s eased restrictions on manufacturers, opening the door for Arnold to develop and market androstenedione in pill form. By the time St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire had made the supplement "andro" a part of baseball history in the summer of 1998, Arnold had increased Osmo's profits 2,000 percent. He became known in the business as the "father of prohormones" and relocated far away from the supplement industry's spotlight to Seymour, Ill., where he formed his own research company before joining forces with Boodram at Proviant. Andro made Arnold such a major player in his profession that The Sporting News named him one of the 100 most powerful people in sports. Fame - or infamy? Fame empowered Arnold. He fancied his role as a guru and relished offering advice, writing for bodybuilding magazines and spreading his message on supplements to whoever would listen. Called a "megaphone for the industry" by one bodybuilding magazine, Arnold formed a lobbyist group aimed at influencing legislators to legalize prohormones. "Patrick had a good reputation for being ingenious," said Steve Downs, chairman of the World National Bodybuilding Federation. "But I think the whole BALCO thing from the beginning, and this included, I don't want to say vindicated, but pleased people who are taking this problem with anabolic steroids seriously." In an affidavit that supports Arnold's indictment, one e-mail exchange with professional bodybuilder Milos Sarcev quotes Arnold as bragging about making a "side career" out of developing designer supplements. One eager bodybuilder so valued Arnold's input regarding supplements and steroids that, partly in jest, he wanted to know "where to send money, gold or kidneys." Arnold responded with instructions to send cash to a post office box. Arnold also liked sharing his knowledge on Internet message boards such as www.bodybuilding.com. Between June 2002 and September 2005, investigators tallied 8,284 posts under the name Patrick Arnold and used that information against him with the grand jury. "There may be some (chemists who) know certain aspects of pharmacology more than I do, but when you add up overall knowledge of chemistry and pharmacology, I will go up against the best of them," Arnold allegedly posted in a forum last August. "I know by heart how to make most every steroid." In the eyes of authorities monitoring the message boards, one man's boast was another's admission of guilt. After Internal Revenue Service investigator Jeff Novitzky discovered in August 2002 a check for $1,100 from Conte to Arnold, Arnold's bank records were seized. An examination of those documents, which helped navigate the BALCO maze for officials, traced the origin of the scandal all the way to China. Paper trail Records show that between March 2002 and September 2003 Arnold made 11 wire transfers totaling $10,200 into two Chinese banks. Arnold is alleged to have purchased the anabolic steroid gestrinone, used to produce THG. The drug is available primarily in China off a Web site called thinkerchem.com [Offline] that advertises the sale of anabolic steroids for research purposes. Further investigation also revealed that the Demetrios Air Freight Co., based in Greece, had made four separate deposits totaling $5,000 in Arnold's bank account during that same time frame. Authorities consider that payment to Arnold for supplying "the clear," or THG, to Demetrios Tsiaousolpoulo, the company's owner. Tsiaousolpoulo's father and noted Greek track and field coach Chris Tsekos are good friends, the indictment claims. According to the affidavit, Arnold sent four separate shipments of the clear substance that were forwarded to Tsekos for use by his athletes. In August 2002 in an e-mail to another Greek track and field coach, Andreas Linardatos, Conte described Arnold as "the clearman." On Sept. 3, 2003, during an interview with Novitzky, Conte identified Arnold as the supplier of the clear to BALCO and colleagues in Greece. Conte had stored THG in a storage locker along with supplies of norbolethone, another anabolic steroid that fit the legal definition of a controlled substance that had not been produced since the 1960s, and desoxymethyltestosterone, or DMT. Federal agents found all three performance-enhancing drugs in Conte's locker next to a box with a postmark "Champaign, Ill." with a return address that matched Arnold's post office box. Arnold also told Conte in an e-mail in May 2002 that he was providing technical advice for banned U.S. cyclist Tammy Thomas on how to fight her positive drug test for norbolethone, which is now illegal thanks to the Anabolic Steroid Control Act in 2004. Last January the government also banned the prohormone 1-AD, the top seller for Arnold's company Ergopharm, an arm of Proviant. Finally, an indictment A bad year got worse for Arnold last month when federal agents from the IRS criminal division and U.S. Food and Drug Administration executed search warrants at his home and laboratory at Proviant, where they obtained enough evidence to gain an indictment. The FDA became involved in February 2004 and even inspected Proviant after the mother of a teenager who had purchased prohormones from Arnold's company complained about their effects on her son. Even if Arnold knew the walls had been closing in for some time, he maintained as strong a front as one might expect from a muscle man. Sixty days before the raid, Arnold shared his confidence, as he was wont to do, with his bodybuilding buddies in cyberspace from a computer in Champaign. "As much as the feds may want to make an example of me, with the way the law is written, there is not much that can be done," Arnold posted on a bodybuilding.com message board. "Certainly they may make a media and political controversy out of it. But I don't care." 2 8 - 1 1 - 2 0 0 5 Bumper crop of scandal raised in Ill. cornfields?
By Mark Zeigler Soon the tentacles of the BALCO doping case had reached into professional baseball and football, into Olympic track and field, into championship boxing, into the very consciousness of the American sports fan. There was grand-jury testimony and U.S. Anti-Doping Agency sanctions and congressional hearings with pumped-up athletes stuffed into designer suits talking about designer steroids. And now the trail has led to a three-story beige building in the cornfields of central Illinois, to a nutritional supplement company called Proviant Technologies and what investigators believe is the true genius behind the whole operation. To a 39-year-old organic chemist who signed off his frequent Internet postings with: "Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy." To Patrick Arnold. "The real message is," says Dick Pound, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, "for once, the upstream folks are going to be in at least as much trouble as the athlete users." Victor Conte – founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative for which the BALCO scandal is named – ultimately negotiated a plea deal; he begins serving a four-month prison term Thursday at a minimum-security camp in the San Joaquin Valley, followed by four months of home confinement. Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds' personal trainer, got three months in prison and three months' home confinement. James Valente, BALCO's vice president, got probation. But the big fish, some say, is Arnold. Conte was largely a distributor, assembling a clientele of elite athletes and funneling them an array of performance-enhancing substances, most of which were common fare in the doping trade. What separated his program was "the clear," or THG, the potent anabolic steroid that was undetectable in standard urine tests and that one coach described as "rocket fuel" and that the government claims was brewed up by Arnold in Champaign, Ill. Conte refers to him in e-mails as "the clearman." Proviant Technologies and Arnold's apartment were searched two months ago, and a grand jury indicted Arnold on Nov. 3 on three counts of steroid-related charges that carry a maximum sentence of 13 years in prison and $750,000 in fines. Arnold pleaded not guilty and is due in court again next week. Arnold and his attorneys have declined comment. Proviant issued a three-paragraph statement about its vice president, saying: "Patrick has a respected reputation as a chemist in the nutritional supplement industry . . . Patrick has always sought to conduct his business in a professional manner and with strict adherence to the law." Arnold was a little-known chemist with a degree from the University of New Haven until 1996, when he came across the recipe for a steroidlike nasal spray that the East German doping machine had developed three decades earlier. He adapted it to pill form, and in 1998 a bottle of androstenedione was found in the locker of baseball slugger Mark McGwire. Arnold became known as the father of prohormones, substances that claimed to convert to steroids only after they were ingested and theoretically were immune from federal steroid regulations. But it is his alleged work in the underground world of designer steroids – taking a known anabolic steroid and tweaking it molecularly so it's no longer detectable in urine tests – that caught the attention of the feds. "The designer stuff is very secret and very potent," Arnold wrote to a Houston pharmacology student in 2001, according to an e-mail included in the government affidavit requesting permission to search Arnold's home and workplace. "It is currently being used by several high profile athletes, some of which are having phenomenal success in their sports right now." Arnold is something of a cult figure in the nutritional supplement world, offering advice and opinions almost daily on the bulletin boards of Web sites such as bodybuilding.com and musclegurus.com. As recently as last summer, he bragged on the boards about his prowess in the lab: There may be some that know certain aspects of pharmacology (the cell biology stuff) more than I do, but when you add up OVERALL knowledge of chemistry and pharmacology, I will go up against the best of them. Especially on the chemistry part, I know by heart how to make most every steroid. THG is believed to be the second generation of "the clear." The initial product was Norbolethone, a steroid created in the 1960s that was never mass produced. Once that was found in a urine test belonging to U.S. cyclist Tammy Thomas, whom Arnold helped defend in her appeal to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, THG emerged. Anti-doping scientists marveled at its potency and its remarkable ability to avoid detection. The standard method to find chemical fingerprints of banned steroids involves heating the urine, and THG, unlike other steroids, disintegrated during the heating process. It is made from the steroid gestrinone, and the government documents indicate Arnold wired $10,722 in 2002 and 2003 to Chinese banks purportedly to pay a Chinese Internet company that sells pharmaceutical products. One of the accompanying e-mails references an order for gestrinone. The search warrant affidavit also outlines how Arnold used Demetrious Air Freight Company to send vials of a "clear liquid" to Greece, allegedly destined for the coach of star Greek sprinters Kostas Kenderis and Katerina Thanou. The two were famously banned from the 2004 Olympics after anti-doping officials charged them with avoiding a test on the eve of Opening Ceremonies. The documents accompanying Conte's indictment blacked out names of athletes and coaches, but the Arnold affidavit does not, casting further light on the particulars of the BALCO doping ring. Included is an e-mail from Conte warning a Greek track coach to have his athletes stop using the previously undetectable designer steroid because the coaches for Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Maurice Greene sent "a sample" to anti-doping officials.
"This is very unfortunate," Conte writes. "Apparently, Trevor (Graham) and company saw the performances of Zhanna (Block) and Dwain (Chambers) and realized that money was getting ready to be taken away from Marion (Jones - red.), Tim (Montgomery - red.) and Maurice (Green - red.), and they became desperate. We might also want to somehow get (this) information to the coach for the Greek athletes Kenderis and Thanou so nobody tests positive." At the time, Jones and Montgomery were no longer working with Conte. Block and Chambers were, and both were running well.
Also included in the 46-page affidavit is an e-mail exchange between Arnold and Milos Sarcev, a professional bodybuilder from Temecula. Sarcev inquires about undetectable substances in preparation for an upcoming competition, then writes: "Let me know where to send money, gold or kidneys." The indictment references a third generation of "the clear," known as DMT or Madol. It was found in a storage locker belonging to Conte during the 2003 raid, then again a few months later in a routine border check of a Canadian track athlete crossing into Canada south of Calgary. Federal agents say Conte told them all three versions of "the clear" came from Arnold. As incriminating as the evidence may appear, it remains to be seen if Arnold ends up in prison. Conte's indictment had 42 counts, and Conte got four months. And Arnold has shown in his Internet postings a keen understanding of Federal Drug Administration laws and their loopholes. (Andro and other steroid precursors, for instance, were not initially banned and it took a separate congressional act years later to get them off the shelves of nutritional supplement stores.) "Really," Arnold wrote on Aug. 1 as the net closed around him, "as much as the feds may want to make an example of me, with the way the law is written there is not much that can be done. Certainly they may make a media and political controversy out of it. But I don't care." The bodybuilding industry has shown its support, devoting entire bulletin board strings to his indictment and expressing its best wishes for the impending legal battle. "You guys are all nice to me now," Arnold wrote in a recent bodybuilding.com post, "but how many of you will actually come visit me in prison. Bring me protein cookies and stuff."
2 9 - 0 1 - 2 0 0 6 BALCO chemist trial planning awaits defence review of evidence
January 29, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO: Setting of a trial date for accused BALCO steroid chemist Patrick Arnold was postponed on Friday to allow his lawyer time to sift through reams of evidence in the case. Three banker boxes crammed with copies of nearly 10,000 pages of documents seized from Arnold’s home and a storage space were delivered to his lawyer barely in time for the Friday hearing, prosecutor Jeff Nedrow said in court. “It ended up being more than we thought it was,” the assistant US attorney told federal district court Judge Susan Illston, adding that he wanted a speedy trial but that it took longer than expected to comply with rules about sharing evidence. “I understand there were some exploding Xerox machines,” quipped Arnold’s lawyer, Nanci Clarence. Illston delayed setting a trial date for Arnold in order to allow Clarence time to sift through the evidence. Clarence said outside court that she intended to look for flaws in the prosecution’s case and indications investigators went beyond the scope of search warrants in seizing items. After scrutinizing the evidence, a decision will be made whether to seek a plea bargain similar to the one struck by Victor Conte, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative founder at the heart of the synthetic steroid scandal. A target trial date will be the subject of a March hearing before Illston in San Francisco. It was reasonable to believe Arnold’s trial could begin by summer, Clarence said. Arnold, who lives in the state of Illinois, pleaded innocent on November 10 to charges of conspiring with Conte to distribute performance-enhancing drugs to US athletes. Arnold was indicted in early November and released on $100,000 bail. The 39-year-old organic chemist allegedly tailored illegal performance enhancing drugs for athletes. Information gathered during the BALCO investigation led federal agents to identify Arnold as “Clearman,” who designed and manufactured the illegal performance drug in Illinois, prosecutors claim. BALCO fallout tainted elite athletes such as sprinters Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones, Bonds and another baseball player Jason Giambi. 2 8 - 0 4 - 2 0 0 6 BALCO chemist 'to plead guilty'
Reuters A CHEMIST accused of supplying steroids to the BALCO lab at the centre of a global sports steroid scandal is poised to enter a guilty plea on Friday, sources say. Federal prosecutors charged Patrick Arnold in November with supplying BALCO with THG, a steroid that sports testing initially could not detect. The BALCO scandal has damaged the reputations of top athletes in track and field as well as American baseball and football, and led to prison sentences for the company's owner, Victor Conte, and for Greg Anderson, the personal trainer of American baseball star Barry Bonds. Arnold pleaded not guilty to all three criminal counts against him in November, but a calendar item for Judge Susan Illston's federal courtroom on Friday says a "Change of Plea/Trial Setting" is planned in the case. "We're expecting him to plead guilty tomorrow," said an official familiar with the case who did not wish to be named. The sentence under the plea bargain was expected to be short, as the indictment came before steroid punishments were recently increased, the official said. According to the indictment, Arnold synthesised THG from gestrinone, a steroid for which he paid thousands of dollars to people in China. The chemist is alleged to have then sent the refashioned substance to the California-based BALCO. Among the three charges against Arnold are conspiracy to distribute steroids with Conte, as well as the introduction and delivery of THG. Arnold's case is not the only one still pending related to the BALCO probe. Seven time Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player Bonds, who told the grand jury he never knowingly used steroids according to his lawyer, is now under grand jury investigation for possible perjury. The legal scrutiny comes as he is just three home runs behind Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time US home run list. 2 8 - 0 4 - 2 0 0 6 BALCO Supplier of 'The Clear' Reaches Deal
BALCO Supplier of 'The Clear' Said to Reach Deal to Plead Guilty in Federal Court
AP SAN FRANCISCO — A noted scientist in the sports nutritional supplement world accused of supplying the Bay Area Laboratory-Cooperative with the performance-enhancing drug known as "the clear" has reached a deal to plead guilty Friday in federal court. A San Francisco federal grand jury indicted Patrick Arnold in November of conspiring with BALCO founder Victor Conte to distribute the once-undetectable substance tetrahydragestrinone. Since he was charged with three counts of illegally distributing performance-enhancing drugs, Arnold has maintained his innocence. But a person familiar with the case said Arnold has a deal in place to plead guilty to at least one charge in exchange for the others being dropped. The person spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because the proposed plea deal was confidential. Arnold, 39, was known for introducing the steroid precursor androstenedione to the United States. Nicknamed "andro," the chemical came to public attention in 1998 when St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire said he used it when he broke baseball's single-season home run record. The indictment against Arnold alleged he trafficked in performance-enhancing drugs that were designed to avoid detection by sporting leagues, including the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, Major League Baseball and the National Football League. The case is United States v. Arnold, 05-00703. 2 9 - 0 4 - 2 0 0 6 Illinois Man Pleads Guilty to Making Balco's Steroid
Bloomberg Patrick Arnold, 39, identified by prosecutors as the creator of the Clear, told U.S. District Judge Susan Illston today in San Francisco that he made three types of steroids for Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the California lab at the center of the U.S. probe. Arnold said he knew the lab's owner, Victor Conte, was distributing them to athletes.
``And you also distributed them personally to athletes and coaches?'' Illston asked Arnold. ``I distributed them to coaches,'' Arnold replied. ``What about athletes?'' she said. ``And athletes,'' Arnold said, without identifying the athletes he gave the drugs to. Arnold, a resident of Champaign, Illinois, was indicted in November on three counts of conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids and misbranding drugs. He pleaded guilty today to a single count of conspiracy to distribute three substances. The U.S. agreed to recommend a sentence of 3 months in jail and 3 months home detention. Won't Cooperate ``Patrick has fully accounted for the part he played in this case and we are satisfied with the resolution,'' said Nanci Clarence, Arnold's attorney, in a statement. She told Illston that that Arnold hasn't agreed to cooperate with the U.S. as part of his plea agreement. Arnold said that between June 2000 and September 2003, he manufactured steroids professional athletes could take to boost their performance without detection under drug testing. Arnold told Illston he made tetrahydragestrinone, a once-undetectable steroid as ``The Clear,'' desoxymethyltestosterone, also known as ``DMT,'' or ``Madol'' and norbolethone, an anabolic steroid. Arnold knew that Conte was distributing steroids to professional football and baseball players and Olympic-caliber track and field athletes, prosecutors said. In May 2002, he sent an e-mail to Balco telling Conte that athletes taking norbolethone should stop after he learned that drug testing authorities were developing ways to detect it. ``Mr. Arnold's admissions today in court confirms his role at the creator and distributor of undetectable steroids to the operators of the Balco labs and other professional athletes,'' said San Francisco U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan in a statement. Arnold is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 4. 2 9 - 0 4 - 2 0 0 6 Supplier of "The Clear" pleads guilty in BALCO case
Lance Williams The prosecutor said Arnold had wire-transferred $10,000 to a company in China to buy drugs that he then used to create designer steroids.
Arnold has a long relationship with BALCO founder Victor Conte, who served four months in federal prison after pleading guilty to steroid-dealing charges last year. In court, Arnold admitted that he supplied the undetectable drugs to BALCO, which in turn provided them to the athletes. On his own, Arnold said, he also gave banned drugs to coaches. Arnold is an amateur bodybuilder who has a degree in chemistry from the University of New Haven. After college, he went to work in the nutritional supplements industry, and became known as "the Father of Prohormone" -- steroid-like drugs that weren't potent enough to be illegal under drug laws that applied at the time. In 1998, Arnold won fame as the marketer of "andro," a prohormone that St. Louis Cardinals star Mark McGwire was using when he hit 70 home runs to break Roger Maris' single-season record of 61. The substance was outlawed last year. According to an affidavit filed with the indictment, after "andro" Arnold began experimenting with creating designer drugs to beat steroid tests. Initially, he synthesized Norbolethone, created in by Wyeth Laboratories in Philadelphia to treat children with growth problems. Wyeth never marketed the drug because of fears that it might be toxic. In 2002, U.S. bicycle racer Tammy Thomas was caught using the drug and banned from her sport. After that, court documents say, Arnold created "The Clear." It was based on a banned steroid called gestrinone. Arnold is suspected of altering the molecular structure of the drug to create a new steroid that, because it was unknown to science, didn't show on Olympic drug scans. In 2003, elite track coach Trevor Graham obtained a sample of "The Clear" and gave it to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, and eventually 13 elite U.S. athletes were banned from competition for their connection to BALCO drugs. The government says Arnold also sold "The Clear" to Greek track coach Cristos Tzekos, coach of Kostas Kenteris and Ekaterina Thanou, elite sprinters who were banned from last year's Olympic games in Athens for ducking a drug test. 2 9 - 0 4 - 2 0 0 6 Chemist who created "The Clear" steroid pleads guilty to conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids
LawFuel Press Release Service In addition to the drugs Mr. Arnold provided Conte, Mr. Arnold understood that Conte was involved in the illegal distribution of several other drugs, including a testosterone/epitestosterone cream known as "The Cream;" injectable human growth hormone; erythropoietin, or "EPO;" modafinil; clomid (an anti-estrogen medication used to help the body regenerate natural testosterone levels); injectable anabolic steroids; and oral anabolic steroids. |
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