SAN FRANCISCO -- Dana Stubblefield, a four-time All-Pro lineman who played 11 seasons in the NFL, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of lying to federal agents when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs as part of the ongoing BALCO steroids saga.
His sentencing is scheduled for April 25. The maximum sentence is five years in prison, but, based on sentencing guidelines and other cases, Stubblefield is likely to receive anywhere from no jail time to six months.
Stubblefield, 37, was one of at least eight National Football League players who testified in the fall of 2003 before a grand jury investigating the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs to elite athletes in the NFL, Major League Baseball and track and field.
However, prior to his testimony, Stubblefield met with Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative lead investigator Jeff Novitzky of the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigations Unit and lied three times during the conversations, according to court records.
The records state Stubblefield lied when he said:
• He had neither seen nor ingested the designer steroid known in the case as "the clear."
• He had neither seen nor injected the oxygen-boosting drug EPO.
• He had never received either item through BALCO.
Stubblefield was suspended by the NFL in 2003 while playing for the Oakland Raiders, after testing positive for THG, also known as "the clear." Also, according to the documents, he tested positive in 2002 for EPO, as part of BALCO's screening process to research whether performance-enhancing substances would be detected. The NFL, which has come through the past several years largely unscathed by a stream of steroid scandals in other sports, did not test for EPO at the time.
This year, the league announced it was adding EPO to its list of banned substances.
The NFL sent a letter dated Nov. 7, 2003, notifying Stubblefield of his positive test for THG; a week later, he sat down with federal agents and made his denials, according to the court records.
Stubblefield was at the Phillip Burton Federal Courthouse in San Francisco on Friday to register his plea.
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