Tejada Charged With Lying to Congress About Steroids (Update3)
By Cary O’Reilly and Danielle Sessa
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada was charged with lying to Congress about performance- enhancing drug use in Major League Baseball.
Tejada “unlawfully, willingly and knowingly” failed to tell everything he knew about an unidentified player’s use of steroids and human growth hormone during meetings with the congressional investigators in August 2005, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said in a criminal information filed today in Washington.
A criminal information can’t be filed in a felony case without the consent of the defendant, according to Sullivan & Cromwell attorney Karen Patton Seymour, former chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan.
“Typically, consent is given when a plea agreement has been reached or is very close,” Seymour said in an interview. Tejada, a citizen of the Dominican Republic who has a U.S. work permit, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Washington tomorrow at 11 a.m., a spokesman for the court said.
The Tejada charge comes a day after three-time Most Valuable Player Alex Rodriguez admitted that he used steroids from 2001 to 2003. Other players linked to performance-enhancing drugs include home-run leader Barry Bonds and seven-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens.
Tejada, who has also played for the Oakland Athletics and Baltimore Orioles, is accused of giving false statements about conversations he had with another player about the use of steroids and HGH, according to the court document. He isn’t accused of lying about taking the banned substances.
Tejeda’s lawyer Mark Tuohey and Astros spokesman Jay Lucas didn’t return voice-mail messages for comment.
Tejada will hold a press conference with his agent, Diego Bentz, and Tuohey tomorrow afternoon at Minute Maid Park in Houston, the team said in a statement.
Interview With Congress
The U.S. House Oversight Committee in January 2008 asked federal prosecutors to determine whether Tejada lied during the 2005 interview with Congress that was part of the investigation into the steroids case of former Orioles teammate Rafael Palmeiro. Tejada was Palmeiro’s teammate in 2004 and 2005.
The request was based on information in former Senator George Mitchell’s December 2007 report on steroid use in Major League Baseball that indicated Tejada may have lied to the committee.
While Tejada wasn’t under oath during the interview, he was told to be truthful or face possible prosecution. He denied that there had been discussions among players about steroids, and said he was unaware that his former team, the Oakland Athletics, had a reputation as steroid users. Tejada played with Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco during his 1997 rookie season in Oakland.
Mitchell Report
Tejada also said he didn’t know of any other players using steroids and that he never used performance enhancers. He was among the more than 80 players linked to steroids in Mitchell’s report, which chronicled widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.
Tejada, 34, spent last season with the Astros and hit .283 with 13 home runs and 66 runs batted in. His home run total was the lowest since 1998, when he played in 105 games in his second major-league season. A five-time All-Star, Tejada has 271 homers over 12 seasons with Oakland, Baltimore and Houston.
He won the 2002 American League Most Valuable Player award with the A’s after hitting .308 with 34 homers and 131 RBI, then signed a six-year, $72 million contract with the Orioles before the 2003 season. He made $14.8 million with the Astros last year.
Rodriguez, a three-time Most Valuable Player, admitted yesterday to taking banned substances from 2001-2003 after Sports Illustrated reported that he tested positive for steroids in 2003.
Testimony from Clemens before the oversight committee about steroids and human growth hormone is being reviewed by a federal grand jury.
Bonds, the sport’s career home-run leader, begins trial next month on perjury charges related to his grand jury testimony that he never knowingly took steroids.
McGwire has failed to win election to the Hall of Fame for three straight years after he refused to answer questions about steroids during his 2005 testimony before Congress.
The case is U.S. v. Tejada, 09mj77, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).
To contact the reporter on this story: Cary O’Reilly in Washington, at caryoreilly@bloomberg.net; Danielle Sessa in New York at dsessa@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: February 10, 2009 16:24 EST |
