Former Bears assistant coach Wade Wilson and Patriots safety Rodney Harrison have admitted to league officials that they received illegal performance-enhancing drugs as part of an Internet drug scam, the New York Daily News has learned.
Wilson, whose career as a quarterback ended in 1998, faces a yet-to-be-announced penalty. He admitted receiving human growth hormone and anabolic steroids while a coach with the Bears, where he worked from 2004-06.
League officials were interested to know whether Wilson used the drugs himself or whether he supplied them to players. Harrison admitted to receiving HGH.
Although the league does not test for HGH, a player can be suspended under the NFL doping policy if he admits or it can be proved that he took or possessed anything on the banned substances list. Wilson is now an assistant with the Cowboys.
Harrison will be suspended for four games, sources said.
The two are the first of what is expected to be many connected to the NFL to arise in the investigation. Sources said officials from the Albany, N.Y., Co. District Attorney’s office approached NFL officials about Harrison and Wilson, saying both had received drugs from Signature Pharmacy in Orlando.
Under the scam, in which nine have pleaded guilty, doctors, hired by “anti-aging” clinics, signed prescriptions for patients they never saw.
Albany and Florida law enforcement agents executed raids in February. Wilson left the Bears for a job with the Cowboys on Feb. 22.
