PART 5 – THE FINAL
WWF Steroid Trial
JULY 20, 1994:
PROSECUTION’S CLOSING ARGUMENT
Government Prosecutor Sean O’Shea Summation:
At 9:30 a.m., with the jury present, O’Shea began his nearly two-hour summation. The following are paraphrased excerpts from his summary:
(“)My summary today will merely confirm my opening statement. It will show you the dark, corrupt underbelly of Titan Sports. The boss of the company used steroids. They were corporate outlaws, headed by the sole owner, the defendant. He was a cunning and sophisticated drug dealer. He was using dangerous and illegal drugs to help a superstar employee, who was trying to hide behind the secretary of the owner.
You’ve heard every excuse. They blame Anita Scales, Emily Feinberg, Bob Gorse. The corporate outlaws blame all the little guys. They blame the fear of stigma or bad publicity. People who are scared of bad publicity don’t warn doctors of police investigations. They don’t launder checks at the local bank. They played the game of see no evil, hear no evil when it came to Dr. Z. They blame everyone else, but you know. The owner saw these drugs as profit – not the paltry profit Zahorian made off of his drug deals. Don’t let them insult your intelligence by saying they didn’t get rewarded by Zahorian’s steroid sales. They were tempted by the millions of dollars of profit made by the company.
Judge Mishler will instruct you steroids must be distributed by a doctor with a legitimate doctor-patient relationship and after November 1988 had to be for treatment of disease. It has to be a real doctor acting as a real doctor. Vince McMahon and Emily Feinberg are not doctors. There was no disease in Hulk Hogan. That alone is enough to convict. But there’s much more evidence.
This is about a corporate drug pusher. Some wrestlers wanted steroids and would do anything to keep their jobs. Every drug user has the excuse and they may believe they need it to go on. That’s why drug pushers have customers. We know they are dangerous. That’s why they are illegal. If the pushers have willing customers, that’s no defense. The wrestlers were willing to pump up because they wanted the money, they wanted their jobs.
Everyone knew about Dr. Zahorian. Patterson said when he was a road agent, Zahorian offered him valium. He knew about Zahorian in ’85. Zahorian offered a cornucopia of drugs not because of any complaint of illness. Important employees – George Skaaland, Jay Strongbow – purchased steroids and gave them to their own sons. Agents offered wrestlers cash. Jack Lanza said, “Do you need cash? The doctor’s here.” Tom Zenk was a new wrestler, he didn’t know what that meant.
Anita Scales wasn’t on the road, but she knew he was bad news. Mel Phillips told her. Tony Garea told her the doctor was “sleazy” and “opened up shop.” Robert Morella said there was no place in the business for his type. Strongbow told her, “The boys need their candies.” When was the last time you referred a doctor giving you candy? When was the last time you called your doctor sleaze? When was the last time your doctor sent you pounds of drugs in FedEd packages? Pat Patterson was squirming on the stand. He said he never heard of those terms, but Emily Feinberg said she was one of Patterson’s closest friends and heard Patterson refer to steroids 20 times. The defendant Mr. McMahon knew what the juice was. He knew it was wrong, but okayed it.
Dr. Zahorian told Vince he was giving wrestlers steroids. His option was to say to Zahorian, “Get those drugs out of my company.” Instead, he decided to make them available. When Zahorian was on the witness stand, the defense tried to say the government put him up to this. You heard it go on and on. He was contrite. He was credible. He said he would have stopped, but Vince McMahon said, “No, go on.” If the wrestlers needed the steroids for medical purposes he wouldn’t have said, “I will stop.”
Think of the coincidence. Every wrestler was sick, always, at the same time, and no one ever got better. Addicts don’t stop. Addicts keep using to keep going. The government exhibit shows Zahorian was present at 50 events from ’85 to ’91.
People without guilty knowledge don’t tell Zahorian to call them back on a pay phone and warn him and tell him to destroy records. When was the last time you asked your doctor to call you back on a pay phone? That’s what you do to avoid the police. If he’s a drug dealer in a white coat and you’ve been conspiring with him to distribute steroids, you avoid the police.
This memo (see cover sidebar) is the smoking gun. Patterson denied receiving it because it’s the smoking gun. It shows that Vince McMahon, Linda McMahon, and Pat Patterson were all up to their necks in the conspiracy. It says Vince McMahon ordered the cover up. This memo says they knew it was illegal what Zahorian was doing. It doesn’t tell you they were shocked to find out steroids were illegal. They knew because six weeks earlier they laundered checks to supply their number one star with steroids.
All the bobbing and weaving was just that. Any time they shift blame, think of this memo. It shows the top three executives knew. They were talking out both sides of their mouths. Sure, he’s a drug dealer, but he was their drug dealer.
They knew steroids meant their wrestlers would be bigger and they could go longer and thus make more profits. God help those who tried to do the right thing in the offices of Titan. Does it sound right that they would mix a chemical cocktail so the wrestlers could go on? He was trying to make more profit from chemical cocktails.
The CEO of this company admits he gave steroids to his top star and there was no doctor-patient relationship. That alone proves it. The stigma excuse is baloney.
(O’Shea then recounted the Rude and Wacholz testimony concerning McMahon’s implied and direct orders to take steroids. He then called the letter regarding how to legally possess steroids “a wink and a nod.”) This memo was still urging wrestlers to take steroids.
(O’Shea then linked the charge to the Eastern District by talking about events at Nassau Coliseum and Rugby-Darby drug company.)
“The judges instructions will tell you about conspiracy laws. He will tell you a conspiracy can be inferred due to actions. You can tell from the actions of these people that McMahon approved.
This is multi-million dollar corporate America, not a mom and pop shop. They are trying to blame the little people, others, everyone else for their actions. Maybe they have a fancy logo and maybe they present a fancy face to you, which makes it worse. This corporation mixed a chemical cocktail and conspired to keep wrestlers pumped up and their cash registers going. It’s shameful and it’s illegal. Consider this evidence and call them into account. I ask you to find the defendants guilty.(“)
