Stubblefield pleads guilty in BALCO case

Dana Stubblefield, a former NFL defensive player of the year, pleaded guilty Friday to lying to a federal investigator about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. He is the first football player to be charged in the long-running BALCO investigation.

Stubblefield, 37, played 11 seasons as a defensive lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, Washington Redskins and Oakland Raiders, earning honors as the league’s top defender as a 49er in 1997. As a Raider, he began working with BALCO founder Victor Conte in 2003, his final year in the league, according to court records made public Friday.

The case against Stubblefield underscores an emerging movement by prosecutors in doping investigations to sanction big-name athletes for perjury or lying to investigators, if not for actual drug involvement.

Olympic sprinter Marion Jones was sentenced to six months in prison last week for lying to investigators; baseball home run champion Barry Bonds faces perjury charges because of statements to a grand jury in the BALCO case; and track coach Trevor Graham is awaiting trial for allegedly lying to a federal agent.

“What people have called celebrity justice now has a second edge,” said Jody Armour, a USC Law School professor, referring to the notion that the famous often skirt tough punishment in legal cases. “These well-known athletes aren’t getting off easy. Instead, the government can now send a powerful social signal, that anyone participating in a criminal investigation better tell the truth, or they’ll be prosecuted.”

Also this week, the FBI announced it would examine whether Houston Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada lied about his steroid use to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee investigators in 2005. The same committee on Friday asked Roger Clemens to submit a deposition and testify at a Feb. 13 hearing where Clemens’ former trainer, who has said he injected the pitching legend with steroids and human growth hormone, also is set to testify. Clemens has denied the doping accusations.

Stubblefield was interviewed by IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky in 2003 after Burlingame’s Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative was raided by a federal task force. Accompanied by his attorney, Stubblefield made three statements that federal investigators established as lies.

First, Stubblefield said he had never seen or ingested Conte’s designer steroid known as “the clear,” even though Conte had told the lineman that “the clear” was then a non-detectable steroid that would assist him in recovery from training. Stubblefield had “consumed this substance several times throughout the summer of 2003 as he worked out in preparation for the . . . season,” court records revealed.

Also, Stubblefield denied that he had ever injected EPO, the blood-doping drug erythropoietin. Actually, court records showed, Stubblefield had been told by Conte that EPO would “provide greater endurance in his off-season workouts,” and the player received “injections of EPO on several occasions in the summer of 2003.”

Finally, Stubblefield told Novitzky he had not received either substance from Conte.

Stubblefield, 37, now a high school football assistant coach in San Jose, will be sentenced April 25 in San Francisco, facing a maximum five years’ imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Stubblefield and his attorney, Mike Armstrong, declined to comment as they left court, according to the Associated Press.

Brian Lysaght, a Los Angeles attorney and former federal prosecutor, said the response to Stubblefield’s trouble is easy to interpret: “It means people shouldn’t talk to a federal agent.”

Added USC’s Armour: “The government can use these athletes’ dishonesty toward authorities as a prosthetic device to reveal their other form of dishonesty: their cheating in sports. With that, a government figure can argue they’re compelled to go after that person.”

In a news release, Matt Parrella, Jeff Nedrow and Jeff Finigan, the assistant U.S. attorneys prosecuting the Stubblefield case, said, “The government’s ability to investigate criminal conduct, unobstructed by lies and misdirection, is fundamental to our legal system.

“Accordingly, individuals who choose lie to federal agents and interfere with this essential evidence-gathering process will be vigorously prosecuted.”

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lance.pugmire@latimes.com