|
2 5 - 0 5 - 2 0 0 5
Coach facing steroids charges
The wrestling coach at a Lancaster school is charged with felonies
BY BILL GEROUX
Richmond Times-Dispatch
May 25, 2005
A wrestling coach at a Northern Neck middle school has been charged with
distribution of anabolic steroids, Lancaster County authorities said.
Ben W. Hunter, 37, the part-time wrestling coach at Lancaster Middle
School, was arrested May 16 on charges of narcotics distribution to a
minor, distribution of anabolic steroids, child abuse or neglect, and
distribution of narcotics within a school-safety zone -- all felonies,
said Chief Deputy Martin Shirilla of the Lancaster Sheriff's Office.
Hunter also is charged with a misdemeanor count of possession of a
controlled substance.
The offenses are alleged to have occurred between June 1, 2004, and May 10
of this year, Shirilla said.
Neither the sheriff's office nor Lancaster Commonwealth's Attorney C.
Jeffers Schmidt would provide any details of the allegations yesterday, or
of the investigation that led to the charges.
Hunter is free on bond and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing Aug. 2
in Lancaster Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court, Schmidt said.
Hunter could not be contacted yesterday for comment.
Billy Jarvis, athletic director at Lancaster High School, said Hunter
coached a youth club wrestling team of middle-school students that
practiced at Lancaster Middle School and traveled to wrestling meets
against other clubs in other areas.
Lancaster School Superintendent Randolph H. Latimore Sr. said Hunter had
no other duties with the school system, and the wrestling season is over
for the year. Latimore said Hunter will not be allowed to coach or to
return to school property until after the case was resolved.
[Link]
1 9 - 1 0 - 2 0 0 5
Student says coach gave him steroids
14-year-old testifies Lancaster wrestling coach injected him
Lawrence Latané III
TIMES-DISPATCH
Oct 19, 2005
LANCASTER -- A 14-year-old student testified yesterday that he let his
middle school wrestling coach illegally inject him with anabolic steroids
to hasten his development as a star athlete.
"He told me that it would help me a lot and be like the next step" in
training, the boy told a Lancaster County Juvenile and Domestic Relations
Court judge.
The boy, who said he placed fifth in an eighth-grade, statewide wrestling
competition this year, testified that he received injections of
testosterone enanthate in his left buttock at least 10 times between late
May 2004 and April 27 this year.
The testimony was enough to prompt Judge J. Maston Davis to certify four
felony charges against Ben W. Hunter, who was a part-time wrestling coach
at Lancaster County Middle School when the steroid use allegedly occurred.
Hunter was 37 at the time of his arrest on May 16.
In addition, Davis found Hunter guilty of a related misdemeanor charge of
distributing anabolic steroids and sentenced him to six months in jail.
Hunter's lawyers said they would appeal the misdemeanor conviction.
The four felony charges are distributing a controlled substance to a
minor, distributing a controlled substance on school property,
distribution of anabolic steroids and felony child abuse by administering
a dangerous substance.
Commonwealth's Attorney C. Jeffers Schmidt Jr. presented evidence that
Hunter had a prescription for testosterone enanthate. The boy said Hunter
suggested that he begin taking steroids "to help me get strong" and once
pulled the boy out of class to give him an injection in the coach's office
of the school locker room.
The boy told the court he never questioned using the drug "considering
[Hunter] was my coach and he was like a father figure to me." The series
of injections increased the boy's appetite "and made me eat more," he
said, noting, "I was getting a lot stronger."
Hunter's lawyers noted that a urinalysis found no trace of steroids in the
boy's system on May 17, the day after Hunter was arrested. They produced a
letter Hunter wrote the boy urging him to lose weight to avoid the
disadvantage of competing in the next highest weight class.
Defense lawyer Craig Cooley of Richmond suggested in his cross examination
of the boy that Hunter "would be absolutely working to a contrary purpose"
by giving him steroids that would increase his weight.
The boy answered that the steroids were the reason for his weight gain.
"That's why I was having to lose weight."
[Link]
|
[Definitie:] "An ergogenic aid is any substance or phenomenon that enhances performance."
(Wilmore and Costill) 
