Last lawyer to leak MLB drug info was jailed, turned in by former pal

Reported July, 2007: "A friend and former private investigator in (Troy) Ellerman's law firm turned him in to authorities after they had a falling out....

• Ellerman was a successful Sacramento attorney when Victor Conte, founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, known as BALCO, hired him
• following a 2003 raid of the Burlingame nutritional supplements lab by federal agents.

He also later served as the attorney for BALCO vice president James Valente,

• and it was while he was representing Valente that he allowed reporter Mark Fainaru-Wada to view the testimony."...

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7/19/07, Seattle Times, from AP: SAN FRANCISCO — "An attorney who admitted leaking the confidential grand-jury testimony of Barry Bonds and other athletes to a reporter was sentenced Thursday to 2 ½ years in prison, by far the harshest penalty to result from the government's sprawling probe of steroids in sports.

• Troy Ellerman, 44, pleaded guilty in February to allowing a San Francisco Chronicle reporter to view transcripts of testimony by Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and other athletes embroiled in the steroids investigation. Giambi admitted taking steroids while Sheffield and Bonds testified if they did take performance-enhancing drugs, they did so unwittingly.

After the newspaper published the players' embarrassing accounts after they had been promised confidentiality, the judge overseeing the case recommended that the Department of Justice launch a leak investigation.

• Ellerman initially blamed federal investigators for leaking the testimony and argued that the case against his client(Balco) be tossed out

• because of government misconduct. He also lied to a judge about not knowing the source of the leaks.

"This affected, and infected, every aspect of the judicial system," U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White said....

• (Judge) White also asked prosecutors about a letter Bonds' attorney Michael Rains filed in the case arguing that the slugger was a victim of Ellerman's actions and that Ellerman was not the only leak in the high-profile case....

But on Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Raphael told the judge that the government's leak investigation concluded with Ellerman's conviction.

• Raphael conceded that there had been other "little leaks" in the case, but that investigators were focused on finding the culprit of the grand jury breach....

from article, "Balco leaker gets 2 and a half years in prison," Seattle Times AP story, 7/13/07, 7/19/07

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