Whistle-blower: Not only MLB players - MMA Names Coming

[keithlewis]

The man who turned the Biogenesis clinic from a quiet investigation in Miami into a national scandal says there are at least a dozen more athletes whose names haven't been exposed and that they come from across the sports world.

"This isn't a 2013 thing or a 2012 thing; some of these people have been on the books since 2009," Fischer said.

Fischer said he and associates have identified athletes from the NBA, NCAA, professional boxing, tennis and MMA, in addition to other professional baseball players who have not yet been identified. As far as he knows, Fischer said, Bosch had no clients from the NFL or NHL.

He said the only sports entity he has heard from was Major League Baseball.

The athletes not yet publicly named come from the documents Fischer took from the clinic, documents he said another employee asked him to take for safekeeping. The number of athletes involved with the clinic, based on what he saw and heard during his time with Biogenesis, is far more than people realize, he said.

"In just the four years that I know, it's got to be well over a hundred, easy," he said. "It's almost scary to think about how many people have gone through [Bosch's treatments] and how long he's gotten away with this."

Bosch has been cooperating with MLB for more than a month, providing what sources have said are extensive records of his connection to 20 to 25 players. The Milwaukee Brewers' Ryan Braun was already confronted with evidence, and he agreed to a season-ending 65-game suspension and forfeited his remaining salary for the year. Other suspensions, including for the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez, are expected within the next two weeks.

In Fischer's interview with "Outside the Lines," he said he never expected the insanity that turned his life "upside down" after he released the documents.

Fischer was a client of Bosch's for two years, believing the man known as "Dr. T" was a medical doctor. Bosch is not but has presented himself as one for years, treating patients like Fischer with weight-loss regimens of prescription drugs. Fischer, who worked in marketing for years, said he offered to start a marketing campaign for Biogenesis last year and that Bosch responded by asking him to invest in the company.

Fischer said he gave Bosch $4,000 in September with the promise he would get $4,800 in return. Fischer was named the company's marketing director. After receiving $1,200, he said the payments stopped. Several former Bosch associates said they were also owed money.

"When I would approach him for money, he'd be like, 'I don't have it. I don't have it.' And I was like, 'I want my money.' He was like, 'I'm Dr. Tony Bosch. What are you going to do about it?'" Fischer said. "So this is what I did about it."

He took some of the Biogenesis documents in his possession to the New Times. His intention, he said, was to spark a federal investigation. After seeing the names of local police, attorneys and a judge in the documents, Fischer said he wasn't comfortable going to law enforcement.

"I was really, really counting on somebody from law enforcement to come up and take me under their wing and have me as a witness in a criminal investigation, but that never happened," he said.

Fischer said he never asked the New Times for money and never went to any of the leagues for money.

A few days before the article was set to run in January, Fischer said he was threatened by someone who he thought was a friend.

"I received that threat that, 'If you don't stop the article, if certain people are mentioned, you're going to be killed. This is not somebody to mess around with,' and so on and so forth. That freaked me out enough," he said.

The friend said he would give Fischer the balance of the money owed him if Fischer would turn over documents. Fischer took $4,000 -- "I only wanted the $3,600 I was owed" -- and turned over some documents. He kept copies, however, and became one of the most wanted men in South Florida.

Major League Baseball sent investigators to his mother's house, pounding on the door and saying they would offer money, according to Fischer's sister, Suzanne. "Outside the Lines" reporters found an MLB investigator's business card at the home that said, "Please call -- We know time = $. Call ASAP."

Eventually, MLB investigators found him and asked for his cooperation, Fischer said. He said he was handed an envelope with $5,000 as a down payment and eventually was given another $500. Fisher said he was reluctant to turn over documents, that he would have to leave the Miami area to start a new life if he cooperated. Eventually, he said, MLB offered him $125,000, a figure confirmed by a source familiar with MLB's investigation, but he turned that down.

"Previously, I had been getting calls from them every day," he said. "Once I turned them down for the $125,000, two days later they wrote me a letter instructing me not to destroy any documents and to keep them around."

On March 24, he said, while transporting the documents, his car was broken into and four of the seven boxes he had were stolen. The Boca Raton Police Department report of the incident states a handgun and a laptop were also stolen. One night, Fischer said, he was chased by three cars until a friend and police intervened. He said someone tried to poison one of his dogs and that several times he found feces on his car.

Fischer said he is still willing to cooperate with Major League Baseball, although he felt harassed by investigators. What he can't believe, he said, is that law enforcement never took up the case and that the Florida Department of Health fined Bosch only $5,000.

"I don't have any friends anymore," Fischer said. "The people that I thought were my friends ended up abandoning me or they side with the things they've seen in the media and read that because I've tried to stay quiet.

"I don't go to the same locations I used to go to. My blinds are closed all the time. I have a concealed weapons permit, but now I continually carry a weapon. It's not what I expected. It's not what I got involved for."


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