More BALCO fun facts

Odd, I follow this type of news pretty closely, but this was completely new news to me.

Or consider the recent case of two San Francisco Chronicle reporters who quoted documents from a grand jury investigating drug use by major league baseball players. The reporters refused to disclose their source for the documents, but were saved from jail when federal prosecutors unearthed the source themselves. He was a lawyer who had represented defendants indicted by the grand jury — and who had then demanded that the charges against his clients be dismissed when the story based on his leak appeared. Do we want to protect that kind of trickery? Surely, many journalists would not.

The twists and turns of the BALCO case continues to fascinate.

Ellerman leaked to the reporters the grand jury transcripts of, among others, Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, while he was defending executives of BALCO, a company that distributed steroids. He had signed a protective order that specifically prohibited him from disclosing the athlete’s grand jury testimony to the press. After the reporters published their stories, Ellerman told a federal judge presiding over the BALCO case that he was “angry” about the leaks and “had no idea” who did it.

We’re unclear what this means for the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Rodeo? Huh? Yup, Ellerman is commissioner of the PRCA. The 1991 graduate of UC Davis Law has apparently has ridden bulls and horses his whole life and in 2005, moved to Colorado to take professional rodeo’s top post.

You can't make this stuff up.