Cops bust steroid ring operated out of two Queens gyms, By: Kerry Burke, Veronika Belenikaya, and Alison Gendar
September 8, 2007
Gregory Kovar allegedly used his take from steroid sales to purchase luxury cars and a motorcycle.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, at right, and Queens District Attorney Richard Brown announced the arrest of 24 people in an underground steroid bust that operated out of two Queens gyms.
Evidence on display at Police Headquarters that was seized at the scene of the underground steroid bust.
A female boxer, an ex-cop, an aspiring porn star, a Bentley fanatic and an actor were among dozens busted for hawking steroids out of two Queens muscle gyms, police said yesterday.
The eclectic crew peddled $100 bottles of the performance-enhancing drugs at the Powerhouse Gym in Flushing and Envy Us Gym in College Point.
Both gyms were shuttered as part of the crackdown, which the NYPD dubbed Operation Dumbbell.
"They turned the gyms into drug supermarkets," said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
The muscle juice pulled in so much dough that 'roid pusher Gregory Kovar, 43, used his slice of the weekly $50,000 take to buy two condos in Silverpointe Estates, a gated community in College Point where he lived, authorities said.
One townhouse held his makeshift steroid lab - complete with bottling and labeling machines, authorities said.
The other he converted into a marble-floored garage for his $240,000 Bentley and $86,000 custom-built motorcycle, cops said. A chrome wet bar gave visitors a view of the auto and the rest of the gaudy digs. His speed boat - the Bada Bing - was moored offshore.
When detectives arrived Thursday with a search warrant for Kovar's properties, Kovar - a brawny 5-feet-2 - crawled out a window in his underwear trying to escape, cops said.
"Half of what he sold was a scam," said NYPD Capt. Andrew Savino. "He bought the raw materials, mixed them with some kind of oil and would put on a label of a real company that had closed five years ago. And this is what people injected."
Undercover detectives made 76 buys at the two gyms, scoring in locker rooms, trainer's offices, on the gym floor - and even at the front desk.
"Our undercover detectives infiltrated this closed circle, a difficult thing," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly as he detailed the 18-month probe.
The sting nabbed Envy Us manager and trainer Jordan Maldonado, 41, who cops said sold real pills and vials of fake drugs to the wanna-be boxers training at his gym.
Maldonado, the star of "Bounce: Behind the Velvet Rope," a film about nightclub bouncers, got his wife - ninth-ranked junior lightweight boxer Cindy (Checkmate) Serrano - to push the drugs, too. But cops said they had no evidence Serrano used the stuff.
Serrano, 25, faces nine years in prison if convicted of the drug charges. A Queens judge set her bail at $10,000.
"My daughter is innocent. That's all I want to say," Serrano's mother said as she unleashed two small dogs on a reporter at her Brooklyn home. "She's innocent."
Also caught allegedly dealing was Mario Godoy, 34, a Bayside bodybuilder who cops said had a bit part in one of the Subway sandwich shop commercials: He played a burly construction worker who loves big, meaty heros.
Disgraced ex-NYPD cop Benigno Mercado, 40, of College Point, was charged with dealing. He had been tossed off the force a year ago after he was caught driving a car with stolen license plates.
Vikki Comer, 22, of Bayside, was described by law enforcement sources as an aspiring porn star who dealt drugs at the gyms as she awaited her big break.
Christopher Pepitone, 32, was surprised to find the Powerhouse Gym padlocked when he arrived yesterday to work out. "You see some young, small guys get huge overnight," he said.
