there IS justice!

Subject: there IS justice! Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:51 pm

Jose Canseco detained at Mexican border in drug bust
BY CHRISTIAN RED
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Updated Friday, October 10th 2008, 6:33 PM

Jose Canseco blows whistle on steroids in baseball with his 2005 book, 'Juiced.'

Former baseball slugger and admitted steroid user Jose Canseco was detained for more than nine hours at a San Diego Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility Thursday afternoon after border agents caught him trying to bring human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) across the border from Mexico.

The fertility drug, which is extracted from the urine of a pregnant woman, helps produce testosterone in athletes who are cycling off steroids. "That helps trigger your own body to produce testosterone when you're not taking steroids," BALCO founder Victor Conte said.

A prescription is required to use HCG, according to anti-doping expert Dr. Gary Wadler. Canseco's attorney, Greg Emerson, told the Daily News that Canseco did not have a prescription.

HCG is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency in males only and is considered a Schedule-III controlled substance in New York.

Canseco, who was with girlfriend Heidi Northcutt when his vehicle was stopped and searched and he was detained, had to sign a waiver and a consent form allowing his Los Angeles-area home to be searched by ICE agents in order for his release from custody, according to Emerson. Early Friday morning, before Canseco returned home, at least 10 ICE agents pored through Canseco's belongings while Emerson was present.

"They were very polite, very pleasant," Emerson told the Daily News. "They arrived around 12:30 a.m. There was no ransacking of the place."

Emerson said Canseco has not been charged, but will appear before a federal magistrate Tuesday morning in Los Angeles.

Canseco met with the FBI and federal agent Jeff Novitzky this past spring in conjunction with the perjury investigation of pitcher Roger Clemens. A former teammate of Canseco's on three different major league teams, Clemens testified before Congress in February that he has never used performance-enhancing drugs.

"We're certainly hopeful he will not be charged with anything," Emerson said of his client's court appearance next week. "This is an incredibly harmless drug. We're not talking about morphine or cocaine possession. Why he attracted so much attention is a bit of a mystery.

"I think that ICE had to try and legitimize 9-1/2 hours of detention, so they said, 'If we don't try to stick something to this guy, it's going to look really bad.' The ICE agents found nothing in Jose's home. Really, in the big scheme of things, this has nothing to do with baseball or steroid use."

Emerson added that he did not think Canseco's latest setback would affect his tie to the Clemens probe. "I don't think this will have any bearing on anything," the attorney said.

Canseco admitted to using steroids in his 2005 tell-all book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big." He identified various players as having taken steroids, including former teammates Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro, Ivan Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez. At a congressional hearing that year on the subject of steroids in sports, Palmeiro categorically denied using performance-enhancing drugs, while McGwire repeatedly refused to answer questions on his own suspected use. Palmeiro was later suspended for 10 days by Major League Baseball after testing positive for steroids.

In December 2007, Canseco was cited in the Mitchell Report on drugs in baseball as a steroid user and was also named in pitcher Jason Grimsley's unsealed affidavit as taking performance-enhancers. Canseco and Grimsley were teammates on the 2000 Yankees. Canseco reached a deal for a sequel to "Juiced" last December, calling his new book "Vindicated." He suggested in the sequel that Yankee star Alex Rodriguez was a possible steroid user, although A-Rod denied any such claims.

Lap's Comment: Pride goeth before a fall.