Federal prosecutors in the BALCO steroid case have urged an appeals court to jail the two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who obtained grand jury testimony, the newspaper reported on Saturday.
Lawyers are pushing to jail Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada for up to 18 months for refusing to disclose the source of their private information to a grand jury.
The move came as a report by Yahoo Sports cited former defense investigator Larry McCormack as saying Troy Ellerman, a former attorney for BALCO founder Victor Conte, had been the source of the testimony leak.
The reporters have not commented on the report. Their appeal hearing is set for Feb. 12.
Fainaru-Wada and Williams wrote stories in 2004 based on the testimony that linked San Francisco Giants baseball star Barry Bonds, New York Yankees star Jason Giambi and former athletics great Tim Montgomery to the BALCO case.
Montgomery and Giambi admitted taking steroids while Bonds said he never knowingly took steroids.
A grand jury is investigating possible perjury in his case.
Ironically, the longest sentences to be served in the BALCO case could be the ones imposed upon the journalists who revealed the story because they will not divulge their source's identity.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB