Trainer’s Lawyer Cites an ‘Agenda’

In the months since federal prosecutors implicated Greg Anderson in a scheme to distribute steroids to dozens of big-name athletes, the personal trainer has faced intense scrutiny over his relationship with boyhood pal and star client, Barry Bonds.

Anderson also has seen Major League Baseball banish personal trainers from clubhouses, where he used to have special access to the San Francisco Giant slugger.

Yet, for all the uproar around the men, Anderson’s lawyer said Friday they remain friends and that Anderson continues to serve as Bonds’ trainer.

“They enjoy a very close relationship,” attorney Tony Serra said. “They are mutually supportive and see each other.”

A call to Bonds’ attorney, Michael Rains, was not returned.

The relationship has guaranteed Anderson a prominence among four men charged in federal court with distributing performance-enhancing drugs to professional baseball and football players and Olympic athletes.

The case revolves around Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO, a nutritional supplement maker. Two company executives stand accused along with Anderson and track coach Remi Korchemny.

The defendants appeared briefly in court Friday. Anderson left quickly, declining to speak with reporters, but his attorney lingered in the hallway.

Serra has filed a string of motions in the much-publicized case.

This week, he asked to see any communications -- including memoranda, faxes and e-mails -- between the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco and federal officials in Washington, D.C.

Serra said he hopes to show the case has been guided by “a political agenda rather than what we’ll call a criminal justice agenda.”

He cited as evidence the fact that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft announced the indictments at a televised news conference and that President Bush spoke about steroid abuse in his State of the Union address.

“What we see is that Bush, in some small way, has made it an issue in his reelection,” Serra said. “If there is governmental bias, the trier of fact is entitled to know that.”

Prosecutors have declined to comment.

Serra also filed a motion regarding samples taken during steroid testing in baseball last year. Though the tests were supposed to be anonymous, prosecutors subpoenaed samples for Bonds and other players with alleged links to BALCO.

Serra wants to see the results. “We’re under a strong belief that [samples from] the athletes connected to my client will come back negative,” he said.

Only about 500 of the 2,900 samples are still in existence, and it was not known how many, if any, belong to players named in the subpoena.

According to a prosecutor’s statements in court, the issue is being litigated in a Southern California district court, where the baseball players’ union filed a motion to keep the samples sealed.

Also Friday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeff Nedrow’s request to begin trial in late June was opposed by defense lawyers.

“There is a whole thicket of issues,” U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said, agreeing that June was too soon. “We had best do this carefully.... That’s just the way it is.”

Illston gave prosecutors several weeks to respond to Serra’s motions. The case will reconvene June 25.

Serra said he did not expect a trial until next year, well after the Olympics, baseball season and presidential election. “After the election,” he said, “the case will go away, I think.”