Steroid scandal nets ex-Mets employee

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. -- A Long Island man is at the center of a mushrooming probe into the use of steroids by Major League Baseball players, according to federal officials' court documents.

Kirk Radomski, who worked for the New York Mets in various clubhouse jobs from 1985-95, dropped a bombshell yesterday in federal court in San Francisco.

Radomski, 37, admitted that between 1995 and 2005 he sold a smorgasbord of illegal, performance-enhancing drugs to "dozens of current and former Major League Baseball players and associates on teams throughout Major League Baseball," said Scott Schools, the US attorney in San Francisco. The names were blacked out in publicly filed court documents.

Among the drugs Radomski admitted to selling in pleading guilty to distribution of a controlled substance and money laundering were anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, and amphetamines.

Radomski pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of a controlled substance and one count of money laundering. He faces up to 25 years in prison.

A source working with federal agents is paraphrased in a search warrant filed in federal court in Central Islip as having said that Radomski is "a major drug source in professional baseball who took over after the BALCO Laboratories individuals were taken down."

The search of his home yielded "shipping records, financial records, correspondence, and contact lists that detailed Radomski's distribution of drugs to professional ballplayers," officials said.

Among the records was evidence of more than 20 occasions in which unidentified major league players issued checks to Radomski between 2003 and 2005 for amounts between $200 to $3,500. Also seized were thousands of doses of steroids.

As part of his plea, Radomski agreed to cooperate with ongoing investigations.