Steroids raid still reverberating
Six months after Florida arrests, probe snares pro athletes, nets cash seizures
By BRENDAN J. LYONS, Senior writer
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ALBANY -- ....
But a few days before the game, according to law enforcement sources, Harrison made what would be his first of several discreet calls over a three-year period to order drugs from a South Florida wellness clinic -- a clinic that later became a target of the Albany County district attorney.
The clinic's workers knew they had a star athlete on the phone -- he wasn't their first pro sports client -- yet they crafted a phony prescription, signed by a doctor, for the drugs that Harrison, now 34, believed would help prolong his career, sources said.
Later that month, about two weeks prior to the Patriots' Super Bowl victory over the Carolina Panthers, a package containing human growth hormone in preloaded syringes arrived at Harrison's New England residence.
HGH, as it is called, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating dwarfism in children and chronic wasting disease, often a symptom of AIDS. But it was banned by the NFL in 1991 as athletes and others began abusing it, usually in conjunction with steroids, in the belief the HGH can slow aging, speed healing and increase strength, stamina and muscle mass.
The same year Harrison placed his first order for HGH, New York Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement investigators in Albany began scrutinizing the illegal prescriptions of a Utica-area doctor, Dr. David W. Stephenson, whom they said built a lucrative business doling out drugs such as steroids and HGH to a largely Internet clientele.
