LANCASTER — A 14-year-old student testified yesterday that he let his middle school wrestling coach illegally inject him with anabolic steroids to hasten his development as a star athlete.
“He told me that it would help me a lot and be like the next step “in training, the boy told a Lancaster County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court judge.
The boy, who said he placed fifth in an eighth-grade, statewide wrestling competition this year, testified that he received injections of testosterone enamthate in his left buttock at least 10 times between late May 2004 and April 27 this year.
The testimony was enough to prompt Judge J. Maston Davis to certify four felony charges against Ben W. Hunter, who was a part-time wrestling coach at Lancaster County Middle School when the steroid use allegedly occurred. Hunter was 37 at the time of his arrest on May 16.
In addition, Davis found Hunter guilty of a related misdemeanor charge of distributing anabolic steroids and sentenced him to six months in jail. Hunter’s lawyers said they would appeal the misdemeanor conviction.
The four felony charges are distributing a controlled substance to a minor, distributing a controlled substance on school property, distribution of anabolic steroids and felony child abuse by administering a dangerous substance.
Commonwealth’s Attorney C. Jeffers Schmidt Jr. presented evidence that Hunter had a prescription for testosterone enamthate. The boy said Hunter suggested that he begin taking steroids “to help me get strong “and once pulled the boy out of class to give him an injection in the coach’s office of the school locker room.
The boy told the court he never questioned using the drug “considering [Hunter] was my coach and he was like a father figure to me. “The series of injections increased the boy’s appetite “and made me eat more, “he said, noting, “I was getting a lot stronger.”
Hunter’s lawyers noted that a urinalysis found no trace of steroids in the boy’s system on May 17, the day after Hunter was arrested. They produced a letter Hunter wrote the boy urging him to lose weight to avoid the disadvantage of competing in the next highest weight class.
Defense lawyer Craig Cooley of Richmond suggested in his cross examination of the boy that Hunter “would be absolutely working to a contrary purpose “by giving him steroids that would increase his weight.
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