Father Convicted of Giving Son Steroids

May 29, 2008 — -- There is something special about Corey Gahan when he takes to the hardwood of the neighborhood roller rink.

Other in-line skaters give him room because Corey is still a champion there. Whipping around corners at more than 20 mph, he was once the fastest teen on skates.

Corey's talent was cultivated by a father who would stop at nothing to make him a world-class athlete, going so far as to provide his son with steroids, a decision that landed him in jail.

Jim Gahan home-schooled his son and was his training partner, business manager and physical trainer. Corey told ABC News senior law and justice correspondent Jim Avila that his whole life consisted of "sports, sports, sports" and "training, training, training."

"You really compromise your everyday childhood," he said. "I missed out on the whole experience of friends."

'Caught Up in the High'

Corey says he and his father were "very, very close" and their hard work paid off when he won a world in-line skating championship at age 10, competing against elite athletes.

But when he was about 12, Corey says he could feel the relationship with his dad changing from parent to manager, even investor, and he felt burdened by adult responsibilities.

"He would experience glory from my success," Corey said. "Skating was a business and we had to succeed or things changed."

Before he entered his teenage years, the in-line skating prodigy became virtually unbeatable, winning competition after competition. But Corey wasn't just fueled by his father's encouragement; he was also fueled by chemistry.

"I definitely got bigger and I got stronger," he said. "These types of medications are so intriguing, because it's almost like an advance into the future. It's almost like a quick fix."

"My dad and a trainer would usually, at a gym or at my house, come into a room, and they would inject me in the butt," he said. "I had a lot of trust in [my father] and in the people I was around. So [I] really didn't, surprising as it may seem, think much of it."

"I was pushing him for the both of us, because I liked it, and he loved it," said Jim Gahan.

"In order for him to compete at the level he was competing, he was going to have to be a monster," Jim said. "You get caught in up in the moment, and all that's around you. We got caught up in the high. We were caught up in the excitement. We're traveling all over the world with this kid."

Taking the Stand

Jim believes that he was injecting his son safely. Doctors monitored Corey's steroid level with blood tests and he eventually took drugs that could be masked from authorities. And in a final layer of the absurd, after father shot up son, he turned the needle on himself.

"Everything he did, I did, OK?" he said. "I wanted to know what the effect was. I wanted to know what the feeling was."

It all came crashing down two years ago when Corey tested positive for steroids just before the world championships. At one point his body had 10 times the normal levels of testosterone -- dangerous amounts -- and his health was in jeopardy. Corey's medals were stripped, and his doctor and trainer were arrested, as was his father.

Jim pleaded not guilty to drug charges, but Corey testified that his father was at the center of the drug use, that it was his father who did indeed inject him with steroids.

"It was hard," he said. "It was hard, but at the same time, I didn't put myself in that position."

Jim was sentenced to six years in prison for providing steroids to a minor. But perhaps more damaging is that his once close relationship to Corey is over.

"Certain people have morals and feelings about what's right and what's wrong," Corey said, explaining why he helped put his father behind bars. "And certain people don't. And I think he's just an individual that morally doesn't have standards for what is too far and with it takes to succeed."

Father-Son Bond Fractured

When asked whether he thinks what he did was wrong, Jim said "absolutely" and admitted that the drugs could have a negative impact on his son's health in the future.

But he struggled with taking full responsibility for the decision to cheat to win. He says it was Corey's idea, and that his son "absolutely" knew what he was putting into his body.

"My son wanted to make it to the next level," he said. "And that's how it all began. And this day and age, kids are not that stupid."

Corey, who now lives at home with his mom in central Michigan and works in a department store, denies that allegation and says that he feels betrayed by his father.

"He still tries to justify the whole ordeal," Corey said. "And I think in his mind, maybe he does justify it. Maybe if he really believes that 'I was right and that it was safe,' maybe he can sleep at night with that. I can't."

But his father says sleep isn't always easy.

"I do 500 push-ups, 1,000 sit-ups every day to burn myself out, so that at night I can sleep," Jim said. "Because I understand the hurt that I caused my family."

ABCNEWS.com producer Katie Escherich contributed to this report.