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Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: Lift Studios on April 24, 2008, 09:56:45 PM
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Plano resident's steroid distribution ring was one of the largest in U.S.
By JASON TRAHAN and GARY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News
The Great Wall of China proved to be too much for Plano's David Jacobs, a former Marine.
Hiking it in 2002 left him winded, feeling weak and embarrassed. It marked a turning point in his life, and he vowed to change.
He became a workout fiend. Then a training guru. And somewhere along the way, a self-taught chemist who produced high-grade anabolic steroids that would transform some of his customers into walking billboards for performance-enhancing drugs, Mr. Jacobs and people who know him say.
That helped Mr. Jacobs build one of the largest steroid and human growth hormone distribution rings in the country, and landed him in the middle of one of the largest trafficking investigations of its kind in the nation's history, authorities say.
Authorities suspect that Mr. Jacobs, 35, and his associates supplied steroids to NFL players, professional bodybuilders and police officers.
Authorities also are pursuing possible links between Mr. Jacobs' network and some of the pharmacies and anti-aging clinics in New York and Florida that serviced professional baseball players and other athletes. And one of Mr. Jacobs' co-defendants admitted selling small amounts of steroids to the owner of the Houston weight-loss clinic recently linked to baseball legend Roger Clemens.
Mr. Jacobs, who had a top middleman who sold nearly $30,000 worth of steroids a month, is one of seven defendants who have pleaded guilty and await sentencing as early as next month.
"David is the kingpin," said Jason Stern, an attorney who represents bodybuilders and is a former NFL agent. "I think this case could be the NFL's BALCO."
Mr. Stern also hosts an Internet radio show about bodybuilding called Big Nation. He has interviewed Mr. Jacobs on his show.
Those familiar with the investigation say it's not clear exactly where it will lead or if others will eventually be charged. The BALCO case involving high-profile athletes, including Major League Baseball's Barry Bonds, began in 2002 and is still playing out.
Mr. Jacobs, whose father won two world trampoline titles and was an NCAA gymnastics champ in the late 1960s, has not publicly implicated any others in his distribution ring. But he has talked to The Dallas Morning News in general terms over several months about the scope of his operation.
A new mission
It all started in 2002, when Mr. Jacobs had a humbling experience while on a business trip in China. Out of shape and with a pronounced paunch, he got winded while climbing the Great Wall.
When he returned to Finland, where he was living while working for Nokia, he found a gym and put himself on a regular regimen. A bodybuilder he met there told him how to get much better results using steroids.
He eventually left corporate life and became part owner of the gym. But a business partnership went sour, leaving him broke and with barely enough to afford a plane ticket back to North Texas.
When he returned in 2005, Mr. Jacobs, who was born in Ohio but grew up in the Dallas area, became a personal trainer and immersed himself in the local bodybuilding community.
At Lewisville Lake's Party Cove one weekend, he met his first pro bodybuilder, Art Atwood. The two became friends, and Mr. Atwood helped train the up-and-coming rookie.
Both men were taking steroids, but were unhappy with shoddy Mexican imports.
Mr. Jacobs went online and found a solution: recipes for steroids using raw Chinese powder. Mr. Jacobs soon parlayed his knowledge of Asia, gleaned during his Nokia business trips, into contacts with English-speaking middlemen to the Chinese steroid powder factories.
He says he wired money to China through Western Union, and the factories shipped him the powder in boxes. Often, they included a fake lab report claiming the powder was for legal nutritional supplements. Mr. Jacobs eventually became a supplement store owner. After tinkering with his concoctions he began selling his compounds, along with Mr. Atwood, according to court documents. Mr. Jacobs initially sold steroids within the close-knit bodybuilding community.
"People were walking billboards for the stuff I was making," Mr. Jacobs said.
Mr. Jacobs may have been his own best advertisement. He says he went from weighing 175 pounds in 2002 to a muscular 272 pounds when he was arrested last year.
Link to Alabama business
Some of the vials sold through Mr. Jacobs' network bore the stamp of Applied Pharmacy Services in Alabama, a compounding pharmacy, meaning it makes drugs. According to Major League Baseball's Mitchell Report, a federal and New York state investigation has linked APS to sales of steroids and HGH to professional baseball players.
As part of that investigation, authorities raided anti-aging operations, including the South Beach Rejuvenation clinic in Florida, and Lowen's Pharmacy in New York, which may have supplied steroids to police there. Investigators have questioned Mr. Jacobs about these companies.
In 2006, one of his top middlemen introduced Mr. Jacobs to Matt Lehr at a Dallas nightclub. Mr. Lehr was a lineman for the Atlanta Falcons, having left the Cowboys two years prior after a falling out with then-coach Bill Parcells over Mr. Lehr's association with a Dallas topless club manager. Mr. Lehr kept a home in Denton County.
Mr. Jacobs said that it was a few months after he met Mr. Lehr that the NFL suspended the lineman for four games for flunking a drug test.
Mr. Lehr's attorney, Paul Coggins, has since said that his client acknowledges his mistake, and is now free of banned substances. Authorities in Mr. Jacobs' case are investigating Mr. Lehr on allegations that he distributed steroids, possibly to other players, but he has not been charged with any crime.
Mr. Coggins said this week prosecutors told him that his client would not be indicted. U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe declined to talk about Mr. Lehr's status, but noted the case is ongoing.
In past cases, the government has usually not prosecuted users, but rather distributors.
Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Lehr became fast friends. Mr. Lehr was a longtime fan of bodybuilding, and even after his suspension, continued to fly around the country, attending shows.
Mr. Jacobs says Mr. Lehr frequently introduced him as his brother. And Mr. Lehr took Mr. Jacobs to the Falcons Christmas party in 2006 at the Georgia Aquarium, Mr. Jacobs said.
Falcons spokesman Reggie Roberts said players invite their own guests and 800 people attended the team's holiday party, so there is no way to know who exactly was there. He said the team has no knowledge of Mr. Jacobs.
By late 2006, Mr. Atwood broke off dealings with Mr. Jacobs, later describing him as "reckless" to investigators, according to court documents.
Package intercepted
But it was a different kind of recklessness that eventually brought Mr. Jacobs down.
A bad packing job, actually.
On March 19, 2007, the United Parcel Service intercepted a soggy package sent from Mr. Jacobs' Plano home, bound for Wichita, Kan. When officials opened the box, they found a broken glass vial of what turned out to be steroids.
Authorities arrested the man in Kansas who had ordered steroids from Mr. Jacobs, court documents say. Jamie Mongeau, an amateur bodybuilder, told investigators that Mr. Jacobs was his supplier.
After the Mongeau intercept, federal investigators asked Plano narcotics detectives to set up surveillance on Mr. Jacobs' home, according to court documents. On April 20, 2007, authorities saw Andrew Schenck, who had bought steroids from Mr. Atwood beginning in 2004, leaving Mr. Jacobs' house with a bag of steroids he had just purchased, the documents say.
Mr. Schenck's arrest gave authorities what they wanted: probable cause to get into Mr. Jacobs' home, court documents show.
That evening, inside the home Mr. Jacobs shared with then-girlfriend Amber Jarrell, a female fitness competitor, they found steroids, his steroids lab, kilos of raw powder, thousands of pills and some guns, the court documents say.
Nearly three weeks after Mr. Jacobs' home was raided, on May 9, authorities searched the Dallas apartment of Matt Williams, who helped both Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Atwood make steroids, court documents show. He eventually became one of seven co-defendants charged in Mr. Jacobs' network.
About a week after Mr. Williams was busted, authorities orchestrated a buy-bust on Mr. Atwood at a Plano Hooters restaurant, according to a search warrant affidavit. In his apartment, they found steroids, the affidavit states.
Mr. Atwood is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Jacobs investigation. His case is pending.
Mr. Jacobs said this week that, on the advice of his attorney, he will not name names of NFL players to whom he sold steroids. He also says he didn't name names to investigators. He didn't have to, he says, because investigators tracking his enterprise had ample documentation of who his clients were by the time he was questioned.
He said that pro football is rife with drug use.
"If people can't see what's obvious in front of them when they watch pro football, then one should never underestimate the power of denial."
Brian Dobson, owner of Arlington's MetroFlex gym, which produced eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman and where Mr. Jacobs used to train with other bodybuilding friends, said that since his bust, Mr. Jacobs has been ostracized by the bodybuilding community he once serviced.
"A lot of people hate him," Mr. Dobson said. "To a lot of the other guys who were his buddies, once he got caught, he became the black plague."
He said that although he doesn't allow them in his gym, he has seen the benefits of steroid use in athletes he's trained.
"I've seen thousands of people take steroids, and I haven't seen anybody kill over it. Most all the guys making it to the top ranks in the contact sports have taken steroids at some point. But not when it's testing time."
jtrahan@dallasnews.com; gjacobson@dallasnews.com
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yea and the "The Dallas Morning News" is so respected worldwide for its accuracy and truth.... ::)
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Thank God the IFBB have such stringent Drug testing of IFBB Pros.Not one of these Pros have a worry in the world when it comes to Jacobs little black book NO IFBB Pro names will appear.
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yea and the "The Dallas Morning News" is so respected worldwide for its accuracy and truth.... ::)
They quoted an attorney who represents bodybuilders and happens to post religiously on GETBIG. It has to be 100% accurate.
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C'mon Ike, if this isn't worthy of a Musclephone text, what is?
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What would be made up in that story?
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Dave Jacobs' steroid distribution ring was one of the largest in U.S.
Good!
What's sad about delusional narcs is that they think they are doing good by fighting drugs, a war which can never be won. Meanwhile, it is NARCS who make it risky to deal drugs and that is why there is profit in drugs to begin with! Oh, the irony...and who benefits from that profit? Why DRUG DEALERS of course, lol. Narcs don't even realize it is them who make the drug dealers profit and fuel the ENTIRE DRUG TRADE. If narcs didn't exist there would be no risk and hence no profit in selling drugs. Every drug dealer should thank narcs. Without narcs, drug dealers could not make money. Of course, the sub-90 IQ narc has no clue the devastation that prohibition causes to society. They just go about thinking they are fighting the good fight as if it is even possible to fight drugs in a free society.
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Who's David Jacobs? ???
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Who's David Jacobs? ???
Ronnie Coleman's former spotter
Branch Warren's former training partner
Art Atwood's former business partner
Quincy Taylor's former bail bondsman
Melvin Anthony's close friend
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Ronnie Coleman's former spotter
Branch Warren's former training partner
Art Atwood's former business partner
Quincy Taylor's former bail bondsman
Melvin Anthony's close friend
nah, seriously?
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bail bondsman
Hi Mike Matarazzo.
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What would be made up in that story?
they didnt give any facts as to how it is one of the 'largest in the country'....There are millions of dollars worth of steroids going around the country, to say Jacobs was one of the largest they should have given some facts to back up that claim..
Anyway I am interested to hearing what Jacobs has to say, I think he will be found innocent.
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Jacobs is innocent just like all IFBB Pros.Drugs what Drugs.
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they didnt give any facts as to how it is one of the 'largest in the country'....There are millions of dollars worth of steroids going around the country, to say Jacobs was one of the largest they should have given some facts to back up that claim..
Anyway I am interested to hearing what Jacobs has to say, I think he will be found innocent.
He has already reached a plea agreement and is awaiting sentencing.
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He has already reached a plea agreement and is awaiting sentencing.
yea "plea agreement" "sentencing"...whatever
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You really think they could get info on all steroid purchases in the US? In the words of John Stassel, give me a break!
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Hey Ed I didn't know you were an NFL agent. Did you represent anyone we would know? Why did you quit? Drew Rosenhaus seems like he is doing pretty well.
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His former "friends" may hate him or want to ostracize him but Big Nation Radio and, I hope, Getbig.com has Dave's back.
All of this is a complete sham. This is a guy who put together some raw ingrediant that made the human body synthesize more amino acids it gets from food. Guys who wanted puffier biceps. All this drama over what?
The United States and the uninformed liberal biased media has their head up their fat asses. This man may have, yes commited some crimes here but in no way shape or form is he a true CRIMINAL.
In the end, Special Ed, Block and BNR will see fit that he comes out ahead and in a better place using his knowledge and talents to make some $$$.
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"Special ED" is the new Rick Collins!??!?!?!
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Jason Stern is a legend in this business and 3-4 others, he is very well known and highly respected in the Upper East Side Jewish attorney community.
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i wonder if Jacobs is looking for anymore "reps" in the northeast?
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How is Lee Thompson tied into all of this?
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How is Lee Thompson tied into all of this?
In an upcomming episode of Big Nation. ;)
When Dave allegedly got "popped" I will say that just about the entire Mr. Olympia lineup was...ummm...concerned.
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THE COOLEST MOTHERFUCCKER IN THE HISTORY OF MUSIC!!!
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In an upcomming episode of Big Nation. ;)
When Dave allegedly got "popped" I will say that just about the entire Mr. Olympia lineup was...ummm...concerned.
Is Jacobs taking it like a man or squealing like a bitch?
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im more interesting in the part where he went from 175 pounds at age 30, to 275 pounds and fucking fitness girls at age 35.
that's pretty good!
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im more interesting in the part where he went from 175 pounds at age 30, to 275 pounds and fucking fitness girls at age 35.
that's pretty good!
maybe he can show you how to go from 125 to 150 "bluto".
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maybe he can show you how to go from 125 to 150 "bluto".
ive narrowed it down to two things i can do:
1. take steroids
2. copy your eating habits
:-\
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ive narrowed it down to two things i can do:
1. take steroids
2. copy your eating habits
:-\
you wouldn't be able to follow my diet, i eat food not penis like you're used to.
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im more interesting in the part where he went from 175 pounds at age 30, to 275 pounds and fucking fitness girls at age 35.
That is a pretty good advancement.
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its been fun guys but 5 minutes on getbig is all i can spend today
sun is shining outside
later
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its been fun guys but 5 minutes on getbig is all i can spend today
sun is shining outside
later
translation=there's a lot of dicks out there for you to suck and they ain't gonna suck themselves.
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Personally, I htink he had to give up SOMETHING. You don't get caught with what he got caught with, just plead guilty, and get probation. Sorry! Not buying it.
Honestly, thisw whole situation is pretty plaid out. Every article about it pretty much says the exact same thing. We all know what he was doing,a nd that he got caught. Why they keep bringing it back into th enews and media is a waste of time.
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glad they are getting the scum off the streets
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glad they are getting the scum off the streets
translation=a big juicer lifted your skinny/fat 153 pounds off his bench and sat you in the water fountain in front of all the girls in the gym and now you hate all juicers.
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Plano resident's steroid distribution ring was one of the largest in U.S.
By JASON TRAHAN and GARY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News
He said that although he doesn't allow them in his gym, he has seen the benefits of steroid use in athletes he's trained.
"I've seen thousands of people take steroids, and I haven't seen anybody kill over it. Most all the guys making it to the top ranks in the contact sports have taken steroids at some point. But not when it's testing time."
jtrahan@dallasnews.com; gjacobson@dallasnews.com
8) ::)
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translation=a big juicer lifted your skinny/fat 153 pounds off his bench and sat you in the water fountain in front of all the girls in the gym and now you hate all juicers.
nice try fatty
have another twinkie and clean the house before mom gets home
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When Dave allegedly got "popped" I will say that just about the entire Mr. Olympia lineup was...ummm...concerned.
Interesting statement.
couple that with the fact that he trained at Metroflex where Ronnie coleman just happened to train during his 8 year reign as the best ever, and it kinda makes the whole "they take the same stuff you do" sound a little fishy
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MATTB C ..... Wells stated on the first page of this subject and I tend to agree entirely.
My personal feeling is that roids should never have been catagorized as they are at present. Even the AMA agreed on that.
And now that it's against the law to use them, the government goes on this massive witch hunt in an effort to destroy various individuals.
I accept the fact that the gov should go after the illegal distributors but they should lay off roid use under the supervision of qualified doctors and those who choose to use them for any reason whatsoever.
If the various sports federations such as the IOC object, let them work in-house to solve their own problem. These federations should handle it themselves. Let each federation decide if roids are allowed or not allowed within that federation and let them determine and administer the consequences if someone breaks their established "code of conduct".
Most athletes would abide by those in-house "rules" if they feared the loss of their contract and forfeiture of all pay and allowances.
The US gov's involvement only offers an underground opportunity for anyone wanting and willing to take advantage of ignorance.
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translation=a big juicer lifted your skinny/fat 153 pounds off his bench and sat you in the water fountain in front of all the girls in the gym and now you hate all juicers.
hahah are you saying that "benny" is tired of flat benching then having the bar grabbed by a "bigger" guy who then proceeds to up right row it?
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You really think they could get info on all steroid purchases in the US? In the words of John Stassel, give me a break!
I dont know but how can they say 'one of the largest' without providing any proof?
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Nyc, in terms of busts and what has been seized being the only official proof they can go off of, it probably is one of the largest.
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translation=a big juicer lifted your skinny/fat 153 pounds off his bench and sat you in the water fountain in front of all the girls in the gym and now you hate all juicers.
Hahahahaha..."Lucas".
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wait wait wait
ART ATWOOD TAKES STEROIDS? :o
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wait wait wait
ART ATWOOD TAKES STEROIDS? :o
No, but based on the pictures I've seen of you I think you outght to consider using mass quantities of them.
Art Atwood uses 'Professional Supplements'.
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No, but based on the pictures I've seen of you I think you outght to consider using mass quantities of them.
right back at ya champ
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I'd like to thank Musclephone for breaking this story.
I wonder if they will break the NY Times piece as well?
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The media love to use the word 'ring' when needing to make something sound like a much bigger deal than it actually was.
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I'd like to thank Musclephone for breaking this story.
I wonder if they will break the NY Times piece as well?
That news broke weeks ago Keith. Try to keep up.
Drug Case Involves 2 N.F.L. Players
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT Published: April 8, 2008
When David Jacobs, a personal trainer and supplement-store owner from Plano, Tex., pleaded guilty to steroid-distribution charges in November and agreed to cooperate with federal authorities, he told a local television station that he would offer evidence linking football players to performance-enhancing drugs.
Five months later, information from Jacobs has led authorities to subpoena at least one active N.F.L. player — a member of the Atlanta Falcons — to testify before a federal grand jury in Texas, said two lawyers with direct knowledge of the matter. The player has not been publicly identified.
The lawyers also said that one of the subjects of the grand jury’s investigation was Matt Lehr, an offensive lineman for the New Orleans Saints who played for the Dallas Cowboys from 2001 to 2004 and for the Falcons from 2005 to 2006. The N.F.L. suspended him for four games in 2006 after he tested positive for a banned substance.
The lawyers said Lehr was being investigated for the suspected distribution of performance-enhancing drugs. The investigation is being led by the United States attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Texas.
Distributors, not users, are often the targets of investigations into steroid use. In such investigations, the government frequently seeks the testimony of users — who often are athletes — to indict the distributors. In recent years, however, prosecutors have pursued athletes they believe have lied under oath, or to government agents, about their use of banned substances.
Paul Coggins, Lehr’s lawyer, acknowledged his client was under investigation. But Coggins maintained that federal authorities had uncovered evidence that showed Jacobs had provided faulty information and that the investigation of his client would probably be dropped. Coggins said Jacobs had turned over Lehr’s name to federal authorities only because Lehr refused to pay Jacobs’s legal fees.
“He threatened Matt and said you have to pay my attorney’s fees or I am going to end your career,” Coggins said in a telephone interview on Saturday. He said Lehr met Jacobs when they were bodybuilders.
“Jacobs saw Matt as a guy with a lot of money and Matt declined to pay his fees,” Coggins added.
Coggins, the former United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said he had represented Lehr for three months. “We are confident that the more the feds look at Jacobs, the less credible of a source of information he becomes,” Coggins said.
In a telephone interview on Monday, Jacobs’s lawyer, Henry E. Hockeimer Jr., said, “Mr. Jacobs has provided truthful, complete and corroborated information to the U.S. attorney’s office.”
Asked about Coggins’s assertion that Jacobs was trying to get Lehr pay his legal fees, Hockeimer said, “That is certainly a strategy he could pursue at a trial, but it won’t be successful.”
The N.F.L., meanwhile, is cooperating with the government’s investigation, according to Greg Aiello, a league spokesman.
In an e-mail message, Aiello did not say what the league’s cooperation entailed. He also declined to say if league security personnel had reached out to Jacobs to learn more about what he told federal authorities.
An official at the United States attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Texas declined to comment.
Jacobs was charged in September as part of Operation Raw Deal, a sprawling investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Administration that focused on dozens of suspected distributors of performance-enhancing drugs who were accused of purchasing raw materials from foreign countries.
Prosecutors made a deal with Jacobs, who was charged with seven others, in the hopes of obtaining more information about the distribution of steroids.
Before Operation Raw Deal, high-profile federal inquiries into performance-enhancing drug distribution appeared to be confined to the United States attorney’s office in the Northern District of California, which has indicted 12 people over the past five and a half years as part of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative investigation and its offshoots.
Judy Battista, Duff Wilson and Michael Brick contributed reporting.
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Photos running with the story. Brings new meaning to MADE in CHINA.
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Club Karma...
Check out Big Dave with Andrea Trent. I remember when she wont the Illinois State in 2003. She was freaky shredded. Striated glutes shredded.
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Dave's a big dude.
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His body looks as natural as his HEAD.Did this guy ever compete or just like the look.
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Dave was a big dude.
Fixed. Probation is a bitch ;D .. kidding
man, from typical suburbia shmoe to bad ass... impressive transformation.
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Fixed. Probation is a bitch ;D .. kidding
man, from typical suburbia shmoe to bad ass... impressive transformation.
hahaha, you don't think he'll find a way to keep juicing?
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Photos running with the story. Brings new meaning to MADE in CHINA.
ALL DRUGS
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hahaha, you don't think he'll find a way to keep juicing?
Wish him all the best..including whatever Dave needs.
Maybe we should check with Palumbo but wasn't Canseco tested while he was in prob?
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That news broke weeks ago Keith. Try to keep up.
Drug Case Involves 2 N.F.L. Players
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT Published: April 8, 2008.....
Wasn't talking about that story Ike. Sorry.
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Club Karma...
Block, do you have any Club Karma stories?
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Block, do you have any Club Karma stories?
It was very very loud and very crowded. The smell was a cross between Pro Tan, sweat, protein farts, cologne and beer. No stories... Maybe upstairs in the balcony I watched Dennis James and Dorian Yates 'tag-team' some slut. Straight up. Dennis had his hand up her ass thrusting in and out while she was giving Yates a bj. By that point I walked away pretending like I didn't notice. Kris Gethin was in the room as he also proceeded to walk away and let them be.