BRISTOL, Conn. - A former associate of Biogenesis head Tony Bosch said he turned down a $125,000 offer from Major League Baseball for documents said to implicate players in the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
In an interview broadcast Thursday on ESPN’s Outside the Lines, Porter Fischer also said an additional dozen athletes from different sports - whose names have not been made public - were involved in the now-closed Florida anti-aging clinic.
Fischer, 49, admitted giving documents to the Miami New Times, which published a story in January detailing the alleged purchase of performance-enhancing drugs by New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, 2012 All-Star game MVP Melky Cabrera, 2005 American League Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon and 2011 American League Championship Series MVP Nelson Cruz.
Others were later implicated in media reports, including Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Braun, who agreed this week to a 65-game suspension. Baseball’s investigation of other players is ongoing.
Fischer said he received $5,500 in cash from MLB’s investigation. The network reported he rejected the larger sum because it wasn’t enough to restart his life.
“Once I turned them down for the $125,000, two days later they wrote me a letter instructing me not to destroy any documents and to keep them around,” Fischer said. “Then two days after that on the 24th of March, I was transporting evidence back to the state investigator for him to follow up on some criminal activity, and my car was broken into and four boxes of evidence were taken.
“I’m still amenable to working with them. Because of this, now my employment opportunities are limited. I feel that I have something good to say. Just like anything else, I feel like my cooperation and compensation should go hand in hand or at least be evaluated.”
Fisher said when he first started working with Bosch,he thought Bosch was a doctor. Bosch’s failure to pay him money he was owed caused him to give documents to the New Times. At the time, Fischer decided against contacting police or prosecutors.
“I didn’t feel comfortable going to local law enforcement,” he said.
Fischer claimed he received death threats from someone wanting to stop the article from being published.
“I don’t have any friends anymore,” he said. “I don’t go to the same locations I used to go to. My blinds are closed all the time. I have a concealed weapons permit, but now I continually carry a weapon.”
Fischer told ESPN.com that some athletes had been purchasing from Bosch since 2009 and that some of the athletes were from the NBA, NCAA, boxing, tennis and mixed martial arts.
He also said that there were other pro baseball players who have not yet been identified. Those athletes’ names come from documents Fischer took from the clinic, documents that he said another employee asked him to take for safekeeping.
Fischer estimated the number of athletes involved with the clinic, during the four years he spent with Biogenesis, was more than people realized.
“It’s got to be well over a hundred, easy,” he told ESPN.com. “It’s almost scary to think about how many people have gone through [Bosch’s treatments] and how long he’s gotten away with this.”
Sports, Pages 19 on 07/26/2013