Mosley told grand jury of EPO use

Boxer "Sugar" Shane Mosley testified in 2003 that he injected himself with the notorious doping agent EPO as he prepared for his light-middleweight title fight against Oscar De La Hoya, according to grand jury transcripts and doping calendars reviewed by the Daily News.

The Mosley transcripts are part of a massive BALCO file that was under a protective order from March of 2004 until last week, when U.S District Court Judge Susan Illston vacated the order at the request of prosecutors who are preparing for the March 2 trial of Barry Bonds on perjury charges.

In the testimony, recorded on Dec. 11, 2003, at the federal courthouse in San Francisco, Mosley also said that BALCO founder Victor Conte explained in detail how the drug was used and what its effects would be, including the potential harmful effects of the highly-regulated endurance booster. Mosley has admitted publicly and under oath that he used steroids and EPO, but has denied knowing that the drugs were banned or illegal.

When asked if he had gotten EPO from Conte, Mosley replied: "Yes, the hematocrit."

"And that's something you actually inject into yourself?" he was asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Nedrow.

"I think it's right by your stomach, yes," Mosley said, indicating where the drug is often injected.

Conte has said he instructed Mosley on techniques for drawing EPO from a bottle with a syringe and injecting it in each side of the belly button in what is known as "double-saturation" injections.

At one point in the questioning, Nedrow produced a calendar seized from the BALCO lab showing Mosley used a potent cocktail of steroids and EPO right up until a few days before his victorious fight with De La Hoya on Sept. 13, 2003. The calendars denote which days Mosley was supposed to take which substances.

Mosley acknowledged that the calendar, marked "S.M.," contained instructions for him, and that the prices scribbled on the margins corresponded with the money he owed Conte for the treatments. (Conte, who estimates Mosley injected himself 20 times on each side of his belly button in the month before the fight, says he drew up the calendar while Mosley watched.)

Nedrow then pointed to the letter "E," which appears on the calendars at regular intervals in July and August.

"E, are those the injections of the EPO?," Nedrow asked Mosley.

"Yes, those would be the days," Mosley answered.

Conte is embroiled in a bitter defamation suit filed against him by Mosley, who claimed in U.S. District Court in California that the BALCO founder had defamed him when he told reporters, including the Daily News, that Mosley had knowingly used performance-enhancing drugs. Mosley withdrew that suit in August, refiling immediately in New York state court. Mosley also threatened to sue the publisher of Conte's book, and Conte's lawyers received an e-mail today from Skyhorse Publishing saying they no longer plan to publish the book because of the lawsuit threat.

As a result, Conte is now looking for a new publisher for his controversial book.

Mosley, who will fight Antonio Margarito on Jan. 24, 2009 in an HBO-televised fight for the world welterweight championship, gave his testimony to the same grand jury before which Barry Bonds allegedly committed perjury. Although he has claimed since then that he thought BALCO's injectibles were safe and legal supplements, Mosley made it clear to the grand jury that he was worried the products Conte provided him were possibly dangerous.

"He explained to me also that - I think if you - if you take too much of it, your blood can get too thick and, you know, it can be bad for you," Mosley testified.

EPO affects a person's hematocrit, increasing the number of oxygen-rich red blood cells and thereby boosting endurance. It is banned in Olympic sports and its widespread abuse has all but destroyed the sport of cycling in recent years.

Mosley's attorney Judd Burstein said that the testimony was consistent with all other claims Mosley has made under oath in the intervening years. "I am very relieved that this grand jury testimony has been released because it confirms that Shane has consistently recounted his dealings with Conte from 2003 to today," Burstein said.

Earlier this year, Burstein told the L.A. Times that his client "wouldn't know a hematocrit from a chromatic print," but in fact Mosley described hematocrit levels in detail during his grand jury testimony.

"[Conte] told me that, you know, the hematocrit level was supposed to be at a certain level," Mosley testified. "And like cyclists and a lot of long distance runners and stuff like that use it… he explained that to me and I said: 'Okay, that's something that I can do to get my endurance as high as it can possibly be."

Conte confirmed that account to the Daily News on Tuesday.

"Mosley asked me about the positive effects of using EPO and how he would benefit from using it as a boxer," Conte said. "He certainly knew that it was EPO and there are three witnesses that were there that day when he was told about it and did his first EPO injection in front of us. I also told him that 'the clear' and 'the cream' were undetectable steroids that would not create a positive test. Shane Mosley has been lying publicly about his use of performance enhancing drugs and there is plenty of evidence to prove that fact. It is despicable that he continues to abuse the judicial system for his own financial gain by telling lies."

Mosley was also questioned about his use of the designer steroids "the cream" (epitestosterone) and "the clear" (THG), which are also written on his calendars.

"I didn't think that any of this was steroids," Mosley said. "I told Victor, you know, I told him that, you know, boxers don't really need steroids in the first place, because you know, steroids don't do anything. Boxing is basically from the mind…"

Mosley told Nedrow he thought the clear was actually flaxseed oil, a similar argument to the one used by Barry Bonds and other athletes who have been accused of using "the clear."

Nedrow asked Mosley, "Did you know it was something besides flaxseed oil?"

Mosley: "Well, I wasn't sure exactly what it was."