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[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
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2 4 - 1 2 - 2 0 0 4 Fugitive trapped by a postcard
By Robert Lusetich
A SIMPLE postcard Ben Ainsworth sent to his mother in Adelaide led to the arrest of the suspected serial rapist in Hollywood.
The 28-year-old bodybuilder and aspiring actor - who fled Australia in January after being accused of allegedly sexually assaulting or attempting to assault three young women at knifepoint in Adelaide between 2000 and last year - mailed the postcard in June.
Although it had a phony address, the postmark was from Hollywood, which prompted Adelaide detectives to alert Interpol, which in turn referred the case to the Los Angeles Regional Fugitive Taskforce. "A wannabe actor and rap artist, big guy, blond hair, somewhere in Hollywood - it's not a lot to go on," said Tony Burke, the supervising inspector with the US Marshals Service who spearheaded the hunt for Mr Ainsworth.
The search began after Mr Ainsworth missed a court appearance in Adelaide in February this year and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He had been charged with one count of non-aggravated serious criminal trespass, three counts of rape and one count of false imprisonment.
Mr Burke, an enterprising investigator who has tracked down his share of felons, decided to bypass the red tape of Interpol and contacted a friend in the Australian Federal Police, who gave him a telephone number for David Modra, the detective on the case in Adelaide.
"I saved about two months of bureaucratic running around by calling Detective Modra directly and getting a sense of the case, of what Ainsworth's about, from him," Mr Burke said. Detective Modra told him that the last alleged rape had been committed at a hostel.
"I'm walking around Hollywood last week and I started thinking that a hostel would be the perfect place for a guy like him. It's cheap, there are few questions asked, people coming and going all the time, a good place to lie low," Mr Burke said.
"The second hostel I walk into, I'm undercover and I say, 'Hey, a friend of mine is staying at a hostel somewhere in Hollywood but I've lost the name'. I describe him and the guy goes, 'Oh yeah, Ben, he's in room 18'."
Mr Ainsworth, who had taken the stage name Jake and worked illegally as an extra on several films - as well as trying to land a job as a personal trainer to well-heeled Hollywood types - was not in his room.
Mr Burke and six other members of his taskforce staked out the hostel around the clock for three days before Mr Ainsworth - who had been tipped off that someone might be looking for him - decided it was safe enough for him to return.
When he did come back, the officers approached him, at which point Mr Ainsworth became violent, the melee spilling out on to Hollywood Boulevard in a scene like something out of a movie. "He's a big, strong athletic guy and he was kicking and punching. It took six of us to subdue him," said Mr Burke.
Mr Ainsworth appeared in a US federal court yesterday where he was remanded in custody pending extradition back to Australia. "The goal is to get him back to Australia as soon as possible and I think that should happen within a couple of months," Mr Burke said. Mr Ainsworth's lawyer, a public defender, took the unusual step yesterday of requesting a complete mental evaluation of his client.
Meanwhile, Mr Burke has sent Mr Ainsworth's file to the Los Angeles Police Department's sexual crimes unit. "We want to see if there are any unsolved rapes committed over the past year that match his (modus operandi)," he said.
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