Miguel Tejada – Steroids, Jail, and Lies Oh My!

Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada was charged Tuesday on lying to investigators on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, reports said.
The Washington Post had reported that the Astros shortsop allegedly made some misrepresentations to some congressional staffers in an interview in a Baltimore hotel room on the subject of steroids in baseball. reported.

Tejada will be expected to appear on Wednesday, 11 am ET in US District Court in Washington. Charges against him were outlined and were filed in Washington Federal Court last Tuesday; indicating that a plea agreement has been reached with Tejada, and is expected to plead guilty, according to an ESPN report. The Astros have scheduled a 4 p.m. CT news conference for Wednesday at Minute Maid Park.

The conference will be aired live on MLB.com and will be attended by Tejada, his lawyer, Mark Tuohey; and agent Diego Bentz.
Tejada was accused by prosecutors of giving false statements in a conversation with former Athletics teammate Adam Pitt about steroids and human growth hormones. No other accusations were made.

Tejada can face a maximum penalty of one year in jail, but advisory sentencing guidelines call for a sentence of probation to six months behind bars, according to the Post report

The charges against Tejada came a little over a year after the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked the U.S. Department of Justice to open an investigation into whether Tejada really told false statements to members of the same committee in 2005 about his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

The allegations go back to 2005 when Tejada’s former temmate Rafael Palmeiro, tested positive in a steroid test on a vitamin B-12 injection allegedly given to him by Tejada.

Palmeiro gave the testimony while under investigation by the House Committee for possibly lying on the usage of performance-enhancing drugs.
Charges against Palmeiro was dropped since the Committee has no concrete evidence, although Tejada admitted during the investigation that he provided Palmiero and two other undisclosed Orioles players with B-12, also known as a steroid .

Tejada denied the use of performance enhancing drugs August of the same year, stating that he is not aware of the substance use by other players.
But the Mitchell Report released last December 2007 suggested something different. Former Sen. George Mitchell said that Tejada’s teammate Piatt, remembered that the he provided Tejada with steroids, testosterone and HGH in 2003.

Piatt gave Mitchell cancelled checks from his transactions with Tejada which amounted to $6,300. One $3,200 check coming from Tejada to Piatt was dated March 21, 2003.

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