Cadet admits to using steroids

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jul 17, 2004 | by TODD JACOBSON THE GAZETTE

Air Force Academy football player Matthew Ward said he used steroids in 2003 in a written statement to academy investigators, a copy of which was obtained Friday by The Gazette.

Ward's civilian attorney, Colorado Springs-based William Muhr, said he will challenge the circumstances of the statement, which Ward signed March 9.

Muhr said investigators led Ward to think the pills he took were steroids, but Ward did not know they were steroids when he bought them 10 months earlier from a teammate.

"At the time he was taking it, at the time he was using it, I don't think he knew they were steroids," Muhr said.

Ward took the pills for three weeks in June 2003, Muhr said. In his statement to investigators, Ward said he stopped taking the steroids because he feared the potential long-term side effects.

Ward is one of four cadets charged with steroid violations. Linebacker Overton Spence Jr. and cadets Jonathan S. Belkowitz and Eric M. Swartz were charged last week. A fifth investigation is ongoing, academy spokesman Johnny Whitaker said Friday.

Ward was a state champion sprinter at Stranahan High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and is scheduled to begin his junior year this fall.

Ward was fourth on the team in rushing last season. He was taken off the team April 15 after spring practice.

In documents released last week, AFA officials charged Ward with wrongful use and possession of a controlled substance. Ward faces 10 years' confinement, as well as forfeiture of pay and allowances and dismissal from the academy.

Muhr said he will ask for leniency at Ward's court-martial Aug. 18. Muhr said Ward wants to return to the academy and the football team and was devastated by the charges against him.

"His goal is to stay in the Air Force and put this behind him and play ball, play ball well and get to the Air Force program," Muhr said. "He is embarrassed. He feels extremely bad about this whole ordeal. I think he would have every motive to excel, put forth 110 percent effort for the remainder of the time he is here."

Muhr said he will ask for a re-examination of the pills, which initially were analyzed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

"There are certain things we have to look at, one is the adequacy of the test of the steroids, if that was done properly, and there is going to be an inquiry into the nature of the search and seizure and the appropriateness of that," Muhr said.

The charging documents said Ward was found in possession of "about 30 pills" Feb. 13. The documents say the pills were the anabolic steroid methandrostenolone.

In the statement to investigators March 9, Ward said he and Spence bought the pills from former football player Trevin Reed but stopped using them because they didn't seem to work. Reed left the academy in April 2003.

Muhr said Ward told him he got the steroids from Reed, paying the former defensive end $100 for 100 white pills that Reed allegedly left in Ward's football locker inside a prescription bottle.

According to Ward's statements to investigators, Spence did the same thing.

Spence could not be reached for comment. His military attorney, Matthew Cassell, did not return phone calls.

When reached by phone Wednesday at his home in Kansas City, Mo., Reed said he knew Ward and Spence from his time on the football team but denied involvement in the steroid scandal.

"I don't know anything about that," said Reed, who attends William Jewell College in Liberty, Mo.

Contacted Friday, Reed said he was interviewed by Air Force investigators in March about the case but denied allegations that he gave pills to Ward.

"I've heard that. I don't know what that's about," Reed said.

"I have been gone from there for 16 months, 17 months. I think it's pretty ridiculous, personally. I don't know what he's doing or who he is trying to cover for."

Muhr said Ward took the pills for a three-week period in June 2003 to guard against weight loss during the summer.

Ward said in his statement to investigators that Spence gave him some of his pills after the pair stopped using them.

Spence has been charged with distribution.

After Ward stopped taking them, Ward held onto the pills because he was unsure how to dispose of them, according to his statement to investigators. Ward said in his statement that he forgot about the pills, which he left in a bag.

Muhr said the pills were discovered in the bag, which Muhr described as a backpack, in another cadet's room.

Muhr said Ward left the backpack in the other cadet's room while returning a Play-Station 2 video game console.

Muhr said investigators from the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations found the backpack with the pills in the other cadet's room.

Without a lawyer present during questioning, Ward gave the signed statement in the hopes of leniency, Muhr said.