Scott Siegel, the actor who played a steroid dealer in “The Wrestler”, was arrested on steroid distribution charges. He was busted with 1,500 bottles of anabolic steroids and more than $100,000 in cash (”Steroids Arrest Leads To Assaulting Officers,” February 20).
Prosecutors say that when Scott Siegal, 33, was approached by law enforcement officers on Feb. 18, he fled in his car and intentionally hit several Eastchester Police Department cars and cars belonging to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
In addition, Siegel allegedly drove his car directly at an officer with the DEA’s Westchester County Drug Enforcement Task Force in an apparent attempt to run him over.
Scott Siegel was charged with one count of distributing and possessing with intent to distribute anabolic steroids and one count of assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding, intimidating, and interfering with officers and employees of an agency of the U.S. Government while engaged in and on account of the performance of official duties. If convicted, Siegel faces up to 20 years in federal prison. … Read the rest of this entry »
The St. Joseph Medical Center’s Powered by Me! anti-steroid education program has started encouraging Maryland high school students to sign pledges promising they will abstain from using anabolic steroids. Parents are provided with refrigerator magnets that remind them of the warning signs of steroid use. The abstinence-type pledges have not been shown to be particular effective in other morally-based education programs (”Anti-steroid program launches second phase for parents,” January 30).
“Parents play a critical role in teaching their children to play their sport safe, fair and free of all drugs,” program director Mike Gimbel said in a statement.
The first phase of PASS, Physician Awareness of Steroids and Supplements, reached out to doctors to look out for the signs and symptoms of steroid use. They were provided with small cards listing the symptoms to make it easier to review during a checkup.
In the latest phase, Parents Awareness of Steroids and Supplements, Powered by Me! will be distributing 15,000 refrigerator magnets to 24 Baltimore County public high schools. The magnets are printed with information to help parents start a discussion about steroids and energy drinks.
The Parents Awareness of Steroids and Supplements program is the second phase of the anti-steroid education program administered by Powered by Me! was launched this week in Maryland with much fanfare. A Physician’s Awareness of Steroids and Supplements initiative was launched last year by Powered by Me!
Applied Pharmacy Services (APS), a popular compounding pharmacy that provided a wide variety of anabolic steroid products, was indicted on charges of conspiracy and distribution of anabolic steroids. The 198-count federal indictment identifies twelve individuals, many identified as steroid dealers, as part of the Applied Pharmacy Services steroid distribution network including owners, pharmacists, doctors, and other businessmen (”Alabama pharmacy indicted for role in performance-enhancing drug ring,” January 23).
The superseding indictment was handed down in December but was not unsealed until Thursday, when six of the defendants linked to Applied Pharmacy Services appeared in U.S. District Court in Mobile for a hearing. Applied’s owners - Samuel Kelley, Jason R. Kelley and Jodi Silvio - are scheduled to return to court for an arraignment next week.
The indictment does not identify company clients, but Drug Enforcement Administration agents who raided the Mobile compounding pharmacy in 2006 found records that indicated Canseco, Rocker, Holyfield and more than a dozen other athletes had obtained performance-enhancing drugs from Applied.
Prosecutors noted that Applied Pharmacy Services dispensed anabolic steroids that were only FDA-approved for veterinary uses. In addition, the government alleges that APS sold steroids to teenagers and others under the age of twenty-one.
An Iowa man gave his 14-year old son some methandrostenolone tablets and a syringe. The father confessed to providing his teenage son with steroids to help “motivate” him for high school sports. Todd Anthony Gerleman was arrested by Black Hawk County Sheriff’s deputies for distributing a controlled substance to a minor after the steroids were discovered when the son physically assaulted his mother. It is difficult to understand why anyone would give their children anabolic steroids during critical developmental periods when endogenous hormone production is already optimal. And why would Gerleman give his son a syringe for oral steroids?!! … Read the rest of this entry »
Recent rooster seizures in California and Texas have uncovered anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs that were used in cockfights. Steroids are frequently used to heighten aggressiveness in roosters bred for cockfighting.
Veterinarians are examining a few of the more than 1,000 roosters and hens that authorities believe were raised for cockfighting on two properties in the Northern California town of McKinleyville.
Animal control officers say they found the birds Tuesday along with steroids, trophies and blades that are attached to roosters’ legs during fights.
Animal control officers in Texas seized steroids as evidence of cockfighting when rescuing abandoned roosters in Odessa … Read the rest of this entry »
Former Michigan football player Rondell Biggs was arrested last summer after Michigan state troopers discovered ten tablets of stanozolol in his car during a traffic stop. State prosecutors chose to prosecute him for felony steroid possession based on the 10 steroid tablets. But the jury acquitted Biggs after deliberating only 15 minutes (”Former Michigan player Rondell Biggs cleared on steroids charge,” December 16).
A Washtenaw County Circuit Court jury deliberated about 15 minutes before finding Biggs not guilty, defense attorney Marc Lakin said.
“It’s good that he cleared his name,” Lakin said. “He’s always been a clean athlete, and he didn’t want his reputation tarnished.” [...]
According to Lakin, Biggs was told by the person who gave him the steroids that they were “weight-loss pills.”
“The jury definitely felt that there was not enough evidence to convince them that he knowingly possessed a steroid,” Lakin said.
Fortunately for Biggs, the jury saw the steroid charge as trivial and accepted the defense argument that Biggs unknowingly possessed and used steroids.
In an investigation that has identified about 100 suspected steroid users and 15 dealers in the county, 10 people have been arrested, including two former high school football players, the sheriff said. He added that of those 100 suspected users, as many as 20 were high school athletes. That number stunned educators and law enforcement officials who had considered performance-enhancing drugs to be more of a big-city problem.
“I think there’s more steroid use, after talking to my investigators, in sports activities than originally thought,” said Bobby J. Guidroz, the sheriff of St. Landry Parish, population 90,000, about two hours west-northwest of New Orleans.
WWE wrestler Charlie Haas publicly discussed his use of anabolic steroids but maintains that he thought he was legally using the drugs since he had a doctor’s prescription. Sports Illustrated named Haas as one of 10 WWE wrestlers who obtained steroids from a compounding pharmacy (”Charlie Haas on His Past Steroid Use,” November 29).
Haas was allegedly prescribed anastrozole (used to ward off breast tissue following a steroid cycle), somatropin (Growth hormone), stanozolol (anabolic steroid), nandrolone (anabolic steroid), and chorionic gonadotropin (protein hormones) between August 2006 and January 2007. Haas claims he thought it was legal, and he was doing it for “maintenance” after he had both his knees reconstructed.
Charlie Haas now believes he made a mistake and steroid use is wrong and kids shouldn’t take steroids. … Read the rest of this entry »
The attorney for NYPD Deputy Chief Michael Marino has alleged that the New York Police Department (NYPD) illegally obtained the names of cops on steroids from the Lowen’s Compounding Pharmacy customer list that was subpoenaed by by an Albany County grand jury (”Chief in cop ‘roids case out to nix info,” November 21).
Lawyer Michael Shapiro claims the roster was originally obtained by an Albany County grand jury through a subpoena and that the NYPD investigators did not have the legal grounds to access it. “The NYPD investigator did not have sufficient cause to obtain it from a grand jury that - by law in New York State - is secret,” said Shapiro, who believes that the motion could lead to the dismissal of the charges against Marino.
NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau investigated 27 cops for improperly obtaining steroids based on the Lowen’s Pharmacy list; in addition, they passed on the names of dozens of other cops on steroids to the Jersey City Police Department.
The Albany County grand jury was convened as part of the compounding pharmacy steroid scandal investigation spearheaded by District Attorney David Soares. The case against Signature Pharmacy was dismissed due to prosecutorial incompetence. But this did not stop the leaking of several names of famous athletes and entertainers implicated with steroid use during the course of David Soares’ Signature Pharmacy investigation.
Deputy Chief Michael Marino admits to having used a testosterone gel (obtained from Lowen’s Pharmacy); but claims his use of testosterone was as part of a legitimate testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) protocol. But Marino refused to accept departmental punishment that would dock him 30 days pay and place him on one year probation; he has chosen to defend himself in a departmental trial.
Gary Hall Jr., Olympic swimmer and outspoken anti-steroid crusader for the sport of swimming, has retired from competition. Hall has been quick to point fingers at his fellow competitors for suspected steroid use and has not hesitated to share his suspicions with the media.
“Do I think it (doping) is getting worse? Yes, I do. It’s here, it’s in the United States. I train with an international group of swimmers and all of them have stories and a few of them have had offers and I’m not at liberty to say (any more).
“To think that it doesn’t exist is foolish,” Hall said. “All doping scandals are not a direct result of positive tests. They’re usually somebody getting caught by some other means. I don’t think that we can rely on a doping agency to really catch the people that are so far ahead of where the testing is.”
Gary Hall suggests that the massive number of world records in swimming during 2008 were most likely the results of steroids and not necessarily the revolutionary swimsuit technology used by so many elite swimmers.
“Clearly we know now it wasn’t the suit that was causing all these world records to be broken, it was copious amounts of steroids,” Hall told the assembled reporters. “Can the suit technology distract from another issue? I think it’s pretty convenient for those that are indulging the other issue.”
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