SAN FRANCISCO -- A Colorado lawyer who admitted in court papers that he leaked secret grand jury documents in a federal steroids probe to reporters made an initial court appearance Thursday on obstruction of justice charges.
Troy Ellerman pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court, but prosecutors said it was a formality and they expected he would plead guilty later in the day.
"That's what we anticipate," prosecutor Douglas Miller said.
Ellerman can be sentenced to up to two years in prison and fined $250,000. Ellerman could also lose his license to practice law.
Ellerman's appearance came the day after federal prosecutors announced he agreed to plead guilty to obstructing justice in a deal that would prevent two San Francisco Chronicle reporters from going to jail for refusing to divulge their source.
In court papers filed Wednesday, Ellerman said he allowed the Chronicle's Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada to view transcripts of the grand jury testimony of baseball stars Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and sprinter Tim Montgomery.
Eve Burton, general counsel for Hearst Corp., which owns the Chronicle, would not confirm or deny that Ellerman was the source of the leaked documents. The reporters also declined to discuss their source.
Ellerman, 44, of Woodland Park, Colo., briefly represented Victor Conte, the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, the Burlingame-based supplements lab that allegedly provided performance-enhancing drugs to the elite athletes. He later represented BALCO vice president James Valente and that's when he obtained transcripts of the athletes' testimony from federal prosecutors.
"I find the fact that Troy Ellerman has admitted to leaking the BALCO grand jury transcripts to be outrageous," Conte said in an e-mail to the Associated Press.
Ellerman signed agreements with prosecutors and was under court orders to keep the grand jury testimony confidential. Ellerman even made a motion in October 2004 to dismiss the case against Valente because of "repeated government leaks of confidential information to the media."
Valente, Conte and three other men have pleaded guilty to steroids-related charges in an earlier phase of the investigation.
The Chronicle published stories in 2004 that reported Giambi and Montgomery admitted to grand jurors that they took steroids, while Bonds and Sheffield testified they didn't knowingly take the drugs.
Shortly after the first leak in June 2004, Judge Susan Illston ordered an investigation. Ellerman and all lawyers in the case filed statements under penalty of perjury swearing that they weren't the source.
