As usual, the media reports out of Atlanta about the U.S. Attorney’s “superseding” indictment of Dr. Phil Astin — wow, 175 new counts! — misses the point.
The May 29 indictment, which can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/Astin.pdf, replaces the original one of last summer, but what it subtracts is a lot more important than what it adds.
The references to Astin’s prescriptions for Chris Benoit’s friend, the late wrestler Mike Durham (”Johnny Grunge”)? Gone.
The massive evidence of Astin’s promiscuous steroid prescriptions, including Benoit’s vaunted ten-month supply every three to four weeks? Poof!
Instead, the superseding indictment is all about painkillers and anti-anxiety agents: Percocet, Oxycontin, Lorcet, Xanax, Soma.
Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer publisher, told me: “Astin was best known in the Atlanta sports community for prescribing steroids to athletes, not painkillers (though obviously any doctor doing the steroids is going to wind up doing the painkillers to wrestlers and anti-anxiety meds because those come with the same territory). In the case of Benoit, where the amount is already public record and clearly over-prescribed, there is obviously a decision that was made not to go into that territory.”
That decision fits the same pattern as the slow, tortuously incomplete sheriff’s report on the double murder/suicide. Whether by accident or by design, World Wrestling Entertainment’s agenda, to emphasize the personal and anomalous aspects of the Benoit story and to whitewash the industrial and environmental factors, is being served left and right, by county and federal authorities alike, in northern Georgia.
For those of you keeping score, patient “C.M.B.” in the indictment is Chris Benoit. “N.E.B.” is Nancy Benoit. “O.G.” is probably Oscar Gutierrez (Rey Mysterio). “M.R.J.” seems to be Mark Jindrak; “R.W.H.,” Bob “Hardcore” Holly; “M.A.B.,” Buff Bagwell.
Irv Muchnick