Defense attorney Thomas Lesser of Lesser, Newman & Nasser proved that federal prosecutors do not have a monopoly on anabolic steroid misinformation and falsehoods. Lesser filed a sentencing memorandum in Massachusetts federal court requesting one year probation for his client who had previously pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges. Lesser falsely characterized the typical steroid user as a massive consumer of ridiculous amounts of anabolic steroids (”Sentencing Memorandum USA v. Shooltz,” March 19, 2009).
“A typical steroid user would use one gram of testosterone per day, which he would combine with other steroids, as well as human growth hormone. Over a ten-week period, 140 grams of steroids would be used, 70 grams of testosterone and a similar quantity of other steroids. Body builders would use more.”
In other words, Lesser expected the court to believe that the typical steroid cycle involved the equivalent of (1) 7,000mg testosterone esters per week; (2) 3,500mg Deca Durabolin per week; (3) 500mg Dianabol per day; and (4) human growth hormone (HGH). Lesser claimed that bodybuilders used even greater quantities of steroids. Read more
U.S. District Judge Jack T. Camp sentenced Jared Wheat and Sergio Oliveira to prison for their involvement with Planet Pharmacy in Belize which produced generic versions of various prescription drugs including various anabolic steroids. The government prosecutors in the case advocated 37 months for Wheat and 18 months for Oliveira; Judge Camp rejected the recommended sentencing included in their plea agreements under Rule 11(c)(1)(C) because it wasn’t harsh enough given “the seriousness of the conduct.” The C-pleas gives the defendant(s) the option to withdraw a guilty plea if the judge denies the sentencing deal; Wheat and Oliveira decided to proceed with sentencing. Jared Wheat was sentenced to 50 months in prison and Sergio Oliveira was sentenced to 27 months in prison (”Diet supplement king gets 50 months in prison,” February 3).
Jared Wheat founded Planet Pharmacy on September 20, 2001 when the corporate domain name PlanetPharmacy.bz was registered. The manufacturing, marketing, and sale of inexpensive generic pharmaceuticals commenced five months later. Sergio Oliveira was hired by Wheat in April 2003 to oversee offshore marketing for Planet Pharmacy; Oliveira introduced various anabolic steroids and ancillary products to the Planet Pharmacy product line including generic versions of Anavar, Anadrol, Dianabol, Winstrol, Arimidex, Clomid and Nolvadex. All of these activities were completely legal in Belize. The United States government nonetheless held the defendants criminally responsible for directly importing medications into the United States, in part, because they “knew” that one of their Mexican wholesalers was shipping parcels to residents of the United States.
Bishop Dolegiewicz, who was former Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson’s first supplier of anabolic steroids, died at the age of 55 on October 28, 2008. Dolegiewicz was a three-time Olympic track and field athlete for Canada and considered one of the all-time best throwers (particularly in the shot put and discus) in sports history. He also competed in the World’s Strongest Man competition and was widely considered to be one of the strongest men in the world. His accomplishments as an athlete and as a coach are legendary and deserving of tribute. However, since this is an anabolic steroid blog, I will focus on Dolegiewicz significant role in the history of anabolic steroids in sports.
When Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for stanozolol during the 100 meter finals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the reaction triggered the largest government-sponsored investigation into performance enhancing drugs in history by Canada. The Dubin “Commission of Inquiry into the Use of Drugs and Banned Practices Intended to Increase Athletic Performance” (aka Dubin Inquiry) produced 14,000 pages of testimony from 119 witnesses at the cost of $3-4 million in 1989. The Dubin Inquiry is credited with breaking the code of omertà regarding anabolic steroid use in sports.
The Dubin Inquiry also revealed that Bishop Dolegiewicz was widely considered to be a major steroid supplier for many track and field athletes in Canada, including Ben Johnson. He was also known for his expertise and knowledge on anabolic steroids and anabolic pharmacology. Read more
The Rodney Philon case is one illustration of the disparity in federal sentencing for anabolic steroid related crimes. Pasco County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Rodney Philon decided to share 10 tablets of Dianabol (methandrostenolone) with a fellow weightlifter at a Tampa Bay area gym; unfortunately the weighlifter was a DEA confidential informant. A SWAT team was sent to arrest Rodney Philon at his home, federal prosecutors indicted Philon of steroid distribution charges, and Rodney Philon was ultimately sentenced to 2 years probation with a requirement of 6 months home detention. All for 10 tablets of Dianabol.
Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals President and CEO Jared R. Wheat, Vice President Stephen D. Smith, co-founder Tomasz Holda and Sales Associate Sergio Oliveira pleaded guilty last week to one count of conspiracy i.e “conspiring to violate federal prohibitions against mail and wire fraud and the importation and distribution of adulterated, unapproved, and mislabeled drugs.” The defendants admitted to the operation of a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility doing business as Planet Pharmacy in Belize where they produced generic versions of various prescription drugs which were sold without a prescription on the Internet (”Four “Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals” Case Defendants Plead Guilty to Importing and Distributing “Knock-Off” Prescription Drugs,” August 18).
United States Attorney David E. Nahmias said of the pleas, “These defendants set up an offshore manufacturing facility where, in unsanitary conditions, they reproduced leading pharmaceutical products for importation into the United States, all without FDA approval or licensing from the rightful patent holders. Their motive in flouting the law, violating patents and exposing their customers to unknown health risks was greed, pure and simple. I commend the FDA and the DEA for their thorough investigation in this case. The Department of Justice and these agencies will continue to work hard to protect American consumers from such fraudsters.”
The U.S. Attorney did not mention that Planet Pharmacy, operating in Belize, could legally produce generic versions of drugs such as Xanax, Valium, Ambien, Vioxx, Lipitor, Zoloft, Viagra, Cialis, Anavar, Anadrol, Dianabol, Winstrol, Arimidex, Clomid, Nolvadex, etc. because of the existence of a loophole in Belize law. Planet Pharmacy believed they were legally operating as long as they did not directly market or distribute the products to residents of the United States.
The “war on steroids” is bad news for illicit steroid users in the United States. But it may be even worse for steroid users down under; the “internationalization of steroid law” has firmly taken hold in Australia. Australian Customs and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) have instigated an aggressive crackdown on the importation of anabolic steroids. Australian Customs has reported over 300 anabolic steroid seizures during the first three months of the year.
It appears that Australian Customs has targeted parcels originating in Thailand. They have intercepted massive steroid shipments from Thailand again and again.
The ubiquitous Richard Janeczko, Australian Customs national investigations manager, announced yet another seizure of Thailand steroids. The most recent steroid bust result in seizure of 15,000 steroid tablets sealed in six tin cans destined for Perth in Western Australia; the steroid tablets were identified as Dianabol Read more
Pasco County Deputy Rodney Philon was indicted today in federal court for giving 10 Dianabol (methandrostenolone) tablets to a DEA confidential source (”Pasco Deputy Indicted on Steroid Charge,” April 11).
Philon initially said he had just completed his own cycle and was taking a week off and would provide the drugs to the source when he resumed, the complaint states. The source asked whether he or she could start earlier, and Philon said he would try to get the steroids, the complaint states.
The source made arrangements to meet Philon at a Publix supermarket on State Road 54 in Pasco. There, Philon gave the source a plastic sandwich bag with 10 pink tablets of Dianabol, the complaint states. Philon told the source how to use the pills.
This reprsents a 1 to 5 day supply of the anabolic steroid methandrostenolone for most bodybuilders.
The Sports Illustrated version of the history of anabolic steroids in sports is now available online in its entirety with the launch of SI Vault.
Sports Illustrated on March 20 plans to unveil SI Vault, a new section within SI.com that will feature digitized archives of the magazine’s complete collection of content throughout its 54-year history. At launch, the online archive will feature 150,000 articles, 500,000 images and 2,800 covers…
Sports Illustrated has documented the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports for several decades. Now, every steroid article, every growth hormone article, every doping article is available to read for free at the SI Vault.
Charles “Modi” Modiano of Cosellout has begun the process of indexing several anabolic steroid articles that we feel MESO-Rx will find particularly interesting (”SI Vault: Sports Illustrated’s 40 Years of Steroids Coverage,” April 2). Of course, Sports Illustrated, from the beginning and throughout its historic coverage of anabolic steroids, has been instrumental in encouraging a climate of steroid hysteria that made the dispassionate, scientific discussion of anabolic steroids almost impossible.
To our knowledge Bil Gilbert’s extensive three part series in 1969 is SI’s first substantial foray into the subject of PEDS with it’s second part on baseball a must-read for historical context. The next 15 years marked many steroid/PED discoveries in sports like Olympics track & field, cycling, and body-building, but wouldn’t receive major attention or cover treatement (see Brian Bosworth) until the NCAA and NFL football became exposed in the latter 1980s. In the 1998, the Olympics took center stage as Ben Johnson was “busted” on SI’s cover. One year later SI printed another article that contained allegations against Carl Lewis and Florence Griffith-Joyner but few heard of the story. In 1991, former NFL star Lyle Alzado personally blamed his impending death on steroid abuse, but doctors could not corroborate such a claim. However, this SI cover story’s set a tone of “steroids scare” that would make it almost difficult to have reasonable discussions on the health risks of Steroids/PEDs for another 20 years.
But the articles are all here for better or worse: Bil Gilbert’s historic 1969 steroid hysteria series; anabolic steroid and bodybuilding in the 1970s; Terry Todd’s The Steroid Predicament about Dianabol, John Zeigler, Bob Hoffman and York Barbell; Terry Todd’s early history of growth hormone in sports; blood doping by American cyclists at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics; old school steroid dealer Charles Radler; 1985 Clemson University steroid scandal; football player Steve Courson’s steroid revelations; Tommy Chaikin’s bad steroid experience; Brian Bosworth and NCAA steroid crackdown; 1989 Senate hearing on anabolic steroids and the NFL; Ben Johnson, Charlies Francis, Jamie Astaphan and Winstrol; accusations of steroid use by Carl Lewis and Florence Griffith-Joyner; Lyle Alzado’s steroids made me sick and scared article; and of course Barry Bonds and steroids; and much more.
It’s all here, the good, the bad, the ugly. Enjoy!
(A special thanks to Cosellout!)
The Pasco County Sheriff’s Department in Tampa, Florida sent a SWAT team into a residential neighborhood to arrest an officer for selling 10 tablets of Dianabol (methandrostenolone) to a confidential source (CS). That was the only crime he committed as listed in the criminal complaint.
Philon met with the CS in the parking lot at the CS’ vehicle. During that time, agents were able to observe PHILON give the CS a package and receive money from the CS. The CS was then met by agents where he/she turned over a plastic sandwich bag with 10 pink tablets of Dianabol. The CS stated that when PHILON provided the 10 Dianabol pills to him/her PHILON also gave verbal instructions to CS on how to use the Dianabol pills.
The local media and Sheriff’s Department strongly implied that Philon was involved in a much larger criminal enterprise involving the illegal distribution and diversion of 100,000 tablets of Oxycodone from a pharmacy warehouse. Another deputy was arrested on the same day for his involvement in the Oxycodone drug distribution ring.
I have seen no documents to confirm suggestions that Philon had any involvement in Oxycodone trafficking; apparently his only crime involved the sale of 10 tablets of Dianabol.
However, since the CS (confidential source) was involved in the Oxycodone drug ring and Philon sold Dianabol to the CS, the Sheriff’s Department and local media reported that Philon was arrested as part of the Oxycodone investigation.
There is a big difference between someone selling 10 tablets of Dianabol and a person selling 100,000 tablets of the narcotic Oxycontin. I think it is grossly unfair and irresponsible for the media (and Sheriff’s Department) to tarnish Philon’s reputation by suggesting he was guilty of the latter crime if in fact this is false. (Watch Sheriff Bob White’s press conference outside of Rodney Philon’s home to see what I mean.)
I ask readers to please correct me if I am wrong on the facts in this investigation.
Another internet-based anabolic steroid source arrested in Opeartion Raw Deal in the fall of 2007 has pleaded guilty. Robert Cashmon of New Hampshire pleaded guilty to six counts including “possession of anabolic steroids with intent to distribute,” “conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids,” “receipt in interstate commerce of misbranded drugs” and “laundering of monetary instruments.” Specific steroids sold by Cashmon as cited in the indictment include oxymetholone, methandrostenolone and misbranded stanozolol (misbranded as CP Winstrol).
Cashmon is scheduled for sentencing on April 28, 2008.
A Libyan national tried to import 24, 000 tablets of Anabol also known as Dianabol or methandrostenolone into Malta. Anabolic steroids are considered “restricted medicines” in Malta. Even though Maltese officials recommend that foreigners carry a doctor’s prescription for prescription pharmaceuticals such as steroids, Malta effectively allows foreigners to bring anabolic steroids into the country for personal use:
Maltese law does not specify what should happen when a foreigner wants to import medicines for his own personal use.
However, if the Maltese courts determine the quantity of anabolic steroids constitutes commercial quantities, then steroid distribution charges apply.
The Maltese case reveals some of the creative methods steroid smugglers use to import anabolic steroids. The 24,000 Anabol tablets were concealed within 24 cans of chickpeas, which were resealed and repackaged.
Another prominent bodybuilder was recently charged with “possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver.” NPC Bodybuilder Eddie Moyzan, recently featured in advertisements for Gaspari Nutrition, was arrested for selling the anabolic steroids Dianabol (methandrostenolone) and Anavar (oxandrolone) to an undercover police officer on two occassions at the Gold’s Gym in Bethlehem Pennsylvania.
The transactions allegedly occurred over one year ago. The Bethlehem State Police refused to explain why it took so long to file charges. Eddie Moyzan is free on $50,000 unsecured bond.
