Athletes get subpoenas in lab probe

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Barry Bonds has been invited. Jason Giambi, too.
World sprint champion Kelli White will be there. So will U.S. shot put champ Kevin Toth, and dozens of other Olympic and professional athletes.
They've all been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury probing a Bay Area lab that supplies some of the nation's top sports stars with nutritional supplements.
Bonds will testify in December. His attorney, Mike Rains, said Tuesday the San Francisco Giants' slugger received a subpoena about a month ago asking him to appear Dec. 4.
Rains said he was told by a prosecutor that "Barry is a witness and not a target of the grand jury."
The company involved
The company at the center of the investigation is the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO, which was raided by the Internal Revenue Service and local drug agents in September. An attorney for BALCO founder Victor Conte has confirmed his client is the target of the grand jury probe.
Conte's attorneys reiterated Tuesday that the lab founder is innocent, and noted that a grand jury probe is "a one-sided process" that includes only evidence presented by prosecutors.
The statement from attorneys Robert Holley and Troy Ellerman calls Conte "a scientist and businessman who has dedicated his life to helping others including high-profile athletes." It vows that BALCO's subsidiary, SNAC Systems, will continue to make and sell nutritional supplements such as the zinc-magnesium product ZMA.
Conte has estimated gross retail sales of ZMA during the past four years were about $100 million worldwide.