PROMOTER SAYS ATTRACTIVE PROPERTY MADE HIM A TARGET

When federal officials asked professional wrestler Vince McMahon five years
ago if he’d bought steroids from a Harrisburg doctor in 1989, he not only
admitted it, he produced the canceled check for $530 to prove it.

McMahon knew that sales of the muscle-building steroids were banned by the
government in 1991, though they were perfectly legal in 1989. But with just
that small amount of evidence, federal prosecutors convinced a grand jury
in 1993 to indict McMahon, who might be best known for inciting riotous
behavior as ringleader and owner of the World Wrestling Federation.

The four-count indictment accused him of conspiring with Dr. George
Zahorian of Harrisburg to dispense steroids to wrestlers between 1985 and
1991. The doctor had been convicted of illegally distributing steroids in
June 1991 during a high-profile trial that identified numerous big-time
wrestlers, like Hulk Hogan, as steroid purchasers.

McMahon’s attorney, Jerry S. McDevitt of the Pittsburgh firm Kirkpatrick
and Lockhart, knew some legal problems might be afoot before that.

A few months before the indictment, McDevitt got a call from a federal
investigator, who asked for a copy of the deed for the property of a
company McMahon owned in Stamford, Conn., called Titan Sports Inc. It was
worth more than $7 million.

McDevitt and McMahon figured, correctly, that the feds planned to pursue
the steroid case in the hopes they could link it to the Connecticut
property, and then grab it under federal laws that allow the forfeiture of
property linked to illegal drugs.

What riled McDevitt was that the government had issued a news release after
Zahorian’s conviction stating unequivocally that possession of steroids
prior to 1991 was not illegal. McMahon had acknowledged his 1989 purchase
at that time.

McDevitt also knew the Connecticut property had been purchased after
McMahon’s steroid purchase in 1989, so connecting it to a drug transaction
to attempt a forfeiture simply wasn’t possible.

But federal prosecutors tried anyway. They even announced their intentions
to the national media on the courthouse steps in Stamford.

That nearly ruined McMahon financially. Banks and creditors became anxious
and considered pressing the wrestling magnate on money he owed.

"I had to go talk with them, to tell them these charges were nonsense,"
McDevitt said.

A few months later, without fanfare, the government dismissed all but one
of the charges against McMahon stemming from the indictment. The forfeiture
action was also quietly withdrawn.

The only count that went to trial accused McMahon’s company of a conspiracy
to defraud the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, even though no one else
was named in the "conspiracy" which, under federal law, must involve at
least two other parties.

McDevitt tried to subpoena officials at the FDA, but the government
successfully moved to quash the subpoenas by arguing they were not
relevant, even though the agency was listed as the victim in the grand jury
indictment.

The government presented its case. McDevitt didn’t bother.

"It was such a weak bunch of garbage we did not even bother to put on a
defense," McDevitt said.

In his closing arguments, McDevitt pointed out that the government failed
to demonstrate how the FDA was victimized in this supposed fraudulent scheme.

Then-Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean O’Shea told the jury that if McMahon had
wanted FDA officials to testify, he could have had them subpoenaed -- a
surprising position given O’Shea’s effort to quash the subpoenas. McDevitt
called O’Shea’s statement "grotesque prosecutorial misconduct."

McMahon and his company were acquitted. He went back to work orchestrating
high drama in the WWF rings all over America.

"In the end," McDevitt said, "the government spent a couple of million
bucks and two years of grand jury time on this witch hunt. Like all witch
hunts, the scary thing was the witch hunter."