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By Sean Leahy, USA TODAY
Canadian doctor Anthony Galea injected seven athletes with human growth hormone in the U.S., his assistant, Mary Anne Catalano, told police after she was arrested on charges of bringing drugs into America on his behalf.
Catalano told authorities Galea crisscrossed the U.S. last summer to treat athletes, sometimes with illegal drugs. Galea, who is not licensed to practice medicine in the U.S., was charged Tuesday with drug violations that included smuggling and illegally providing HGH. Documents from a Canadian court obtained by ESPN revealed Catalano said she made 23 border crossings between March and September 2009 in order to funnel drugs to Galea. Catalano told police Galea had previously encountered trouble transporting the substances from his Toronto clinic into the U.S.. HGH is banned by the NFL, and the league said in a statement Tuesday that it wanted to know the identities of the three unnamed players cited as witnesses in the criminal complaint against Galea. One of those witnesses, a former player, said Galea arranged for HGH kits to be delivered to his home. Among the highlights of Catalano's comments to police: • She had been contacted Sept. 13 by an athlete in Washington, D.C., who wanted to receive treatment from Galea the following day. Police arrested her Sept. 14 while she crossed the Peace Bridge in Buffalo and found HGH in her possession. • Catalano originally told police the drugs were showpieces for a speech Galea would be giving at a Washington conference. She soon recanted. • Catalano outlined a schedule from July 22 to Sept. 11, 2009, in which Galea visited New York City, Tampa, Orlando, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and Cleveland to meet with dozens of unnamed athletes. She said the athletes paid for the treatment and travel expenses. • Galea performed two procedures on athletes, Catalano told police. One was to inject HGH into the knee. The other was a plasma injection she said involved draining blood from an athlete into a centrifuge that would separate plasma from red blood cells. Tennessee Titans quarterback Chris Simms has acknowledged getting plasma injections from Galea in 2007. Washington Redskins coach Mike Shanahan said Wednesday that the NFL had not contacted him about involvement with anyone connected to his team. "I'm not going to answer to every type of question that some doctor coming into town and supposedly seeing a player," Shanahan said. "(The) NFL is on top of all of those things, and if there is any validity to it they will contact me and contact our organization." No names were revealed in the Canadian or U.S. court documents. And Chris Leibig, a defense attorney based in Arlington, Va., said any athletes connected to Galea would work hard to maintain their privacy. "If you're representing one of those players," Leibig said, "you're doing everything you can to keep them out of the case — both not charged and not as a witness." It's standard for prosecutors not to disclose the identities of witnesses at this point of an investigation, Leibig said, but anonymity could evaporate as the case proceeds. If Catalano appears as a witness against Galea at his trial, attorneys would likely press her to identify the players she said the doctor injected with HGH. "Once she's on the witness stand, they would naturally ask her who they were," Leibig said. "It goes to her credibility." Galea's attorney, Brian Greenspan, told the Associated Press the doctor would respond at the appropriate time.
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