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2 9 - 0 4 - 2 0 0 7 Records Show More to Come in Steroid Case
By JULIET MACUR
The day after one of the most significant breaks in the continuing baseball steroids scandal, information in court documents shows that the federal investigation is far from over.
Court records show that there are at least three more search warrant affidavits, each signed by Jeff Novitzky, an Internal Revenue Service special agent who is investigating drug use in baseball. Novitzky has been the lead investigator in the most prominent steroids distribution cases this decade, including the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative case that ensnared dozens of athletes, coaches and suppliers.
Novitzky’s latest case involves Kirk Radomski, a former Mets clubhouse assistant who pleaded guilty Friday to supplying performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of current and former Major League Baseball players and their associates, and laundering the proceeds from those transactions.
Novitzky signed an affidavit on Dec. 13, 2005, filed in conjunction with a search the next day on Radomski’s Long Island home. After that raid, Radomski immediately began helping federal investigators look into drug use in baseball. In that affidavit, Novitzky wrote that he had written affidavits in support of search warrants “on 35 different locations” during his 13 years with the I.R.S. Criminal Investigation Unit.
Less than six months later, Novitzky signed another affidavit, that one to search the home of the journeyman pitcher Jason Grimsley. Novitzky said it was his 39th affidavit in support of search warrants, meaning that there had been three other affidavits filed — and likely three other searches of homes or businesses — between the Radomski and the Grimsley searches. The Radomski and Grimsley affidavits are the only two that have been unsealed by courts.
In a telephone call yesterday, Novitzky declined to comment on the investigation because it was continuing.
The Grimsley affidavit, dated May 31, 2006 — five and a half months after the Radomski affidavit — stated that Grimsley had used performance-enhancing drugs like human growth hormone, amphetamines and the anabolic steroid named clenbuterol, [Clenbuterol een steroid. Natuurlijk. Zucht - red.] one of the drugs that Radomski said he had sold once a go-between in baseball had set him up with many of his clients.
The affidavit also stated that Grimsley told investigators about former and current players who had used performance-enhancing drugs.
There are some similarities between the two affidavits. Both mention virtually the same drugs, both list payments in similar price increments and both have many names of professional baseball players whose names are redacted.
Grimsley’s agent, Joe Bick, said Saturday that Grimsley had never given up names of players who had used drugs, but that federal agents had offered him names of possible users. “They had a list and asked him about the players; he never volunteered names,” said Bick, via telephone, who added that federal investigators had not contacted Grimsley since they raided his home last summer.
One question is whether the names in the Grimsley affidavit were first offered by Radomski.
Radomski, 37, had worked for the Mets from 1985 to 1995. He said he had dealt anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and amphetamines to players for about a decade, beginning in 1995.
As part of his plea agreement, Radomski agreed to cooperate with federal investigators and nongovernmental investigators, which includes an inquiry into steroid use in baseball by the former Senator George J. Mitchell. When contacted yesterday, Mitchell did not comment.
There are several ways that the names could come out. The players named by Radomski could be asked to testify in a grand jury investigation, similar to the athletes who were compelled to testify before the Balco grand jury. The Mitchell investigation, or Major League Baseball itself if it does receive the names, could also release the information. Also, Congress could force prosecutors to provide the names.
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