Prosecutor of Signature pharmacy steroids case faces $75 million law suit.

An upstate New York prosecutor who charged a Florida pharmacy in 2007 with selling anabolic steroids to pro athletes and entertainers is being sued for $75 million by the pharmacists, who claim defamation and false arrest with their indictments now dismissed in criminal court.

Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares made headlines when he accompanied federal and state agents in a raid at Signature Pharmacy in Orlando and charged its operators with illicit sales of performance-enhancing drugs.

Those charges have been dismissed twice by Albany County Judge Stephen Herrick — most recently citing a conflict of interest with Soares because of the pending federal civil suit — and neighboring district attorneys declined to take the case. Herrick has appointed a private attorney as special prosecutor to again consider charges.

U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell in Orlando ruled in June that he doesn’t know if Signature violated any New York law or even if the arrest warrants from New York were valid since they were based on the first in a series of indictments that was no longer in effect during the Feb. 27, 2007, raid and arrests.

Soares and his deputy, Christopher Baynes, who is also being sued, have appealed the federal judge’s decision to permit the civil suit. An appeals ruling could take months.

In the civil suit claiming false arrest and defamation, Presnell refused to grant the prosecutors immunity that would normally apply when doing their jobs.

“They were a thousand miles from their jurisdiction and were participating in — indeed, Soares was purportedly ‘commanding’ — a law enforcement raid on Signature’s premises,” Presnell wrote, saying the prosecutors’ focus appeared to be getting press attention. “Even assuming that they had some authority to execute or participate in the execution of Florida search warrants, Soares and Baynes had no judicial business in Florida.”

Soares in 2008 said authorities had been able “to disrupt a multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise trafficking illegal steroids to thousands of people across the country.” He said the focus was distributors, not clients, and declined to publicly confirm the names of prominent athletes believed to be clients.

More recently, Soares’ office has repeatedly declined to comment on the case, except a brief statement that Herrick’s decision last month to throw out the latest indictment and bar Soares from the prosecution “undermines the criminal justice system.”

Albany prosecutors met with representatives from the Mitchell Commission investigating the use of performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball in 2007. Soares said they also worked for months with National Football League officials.

In June, Presnell ordered the return of Signature’s records and inventory, saying prosecutors overstepped their bounds in taking everything.

Attorney Amy Tingley said the drugs had expired and while Signature did remain open after the raid, it never recovered. It formally closed its pharmacy operations in late 2008. Her clients were arrested publicly, spent a week in jail and were flown to Albany before posting bail. Three have gone to work for another pharmacy, and two are not working, she said.

A business evaluation filed last year in federal court estimated damages for the pharmacy’s lost value at $27.2 million and lost profits at $48.5 million.

“These individuals, like Judge Presnell said, they have not been convicted of anything,” Tingley said. “They stand here today, as they had on day one, proclaiming their innocence.”

Within two years of the raid, 17 other people pleaded guilty to drug and conspiracy counts in Albany, including operators and employees of several distributors that did business with Signature, as well as four doctors or former doctors who wrote prescriptions.

Soares maintained it was illegal in New York for a doctor to prescribe drugs without examining the patient in person and illegal for a pharmacy to dispense drugs without a valid prescription.

Clint Faught and the Taylor Hooton Foundation make some interesting comments on steroid use.

“Sixty-five percent of creatine sold today is contaminated with steroids,” Faught said as he tried to emphasize to the students that using such supplements could be dangerous. He referred to nsfsport.con as a Web site that “lets you know what’s safe and what’s not.”

( I’m sure his comments will boost sales of creatine by those looking for free steroids )

As for anabolic steroids, he said the biggest danger there is “you don’t even know what exactly it is you’re taking.” He said a summary of 217 studies of the chemical makeup of illegal anabolic steroids shows that 30 percent did not contain what was on the label, and that 40 percent of the time the listed dosages were wrong.

Faught also addressed the question of who is using APEDs. He said of 1 million teenagers that admitted to using anabolic steroids, half were not even athletes.

“The fastest growing group of users is 14 and 15-year-old girls,” Faught said. “More than 1 in 20 high school girls already use anabolic steroids, and that number continues to increase.

“The No. 1 reason is to improve the way they look and feel about themselves.”

( Not sure why the average high school girl would think that acne and increased facial hair growth would make them look and feel better wouldn’t diet drugs be their logical choice. )

Eight people face preliminary charges in relation to French doping raids.

Following Tuesday’s doping raids in Caen in north-west France, eight people face preliminary charges in relation to the police operation.

Those concerned include several amateur riders, a pharmacist, a doctor, bodybuilders and former riders. It is unknown if the latter competed in the professional ranks or not; initial reports on Tuesday stated that pro riders were amongst those taken into custody, but some subsequent reports have questioned this.

The doctor has been accused of writing false prescriptions, while the others have been accused of using doping products including EPO, growth hormone and anabolic agents.

The race was carried out by OCLAESP, the French Central office for the Fight against Environmental Damage and Public Health (Office Central de Lutte contre les Atteintes à l’Environnement et à la Santé Publique), and resulted in the suspects being jailed for 48 hours before their release on Thursday evening.

According to AP, the filing of preliminary charges in France occurs when the investigating magistrates have strong reason to suspect involvement in a crime. It enables the investigators to keep searching for evidence, thus building a case.

The OCLAESP is the same body which was investigating the Astana team after infusion kits and syringes were found during the 2009 Tour de France. Infusions and transfusions are banned by WADA. The OCLAESP also met US investigators recently at Interpol’s base in Lyon in connection with the investigation into claims of doping by the US Postal Services team.

This week’s raids are connected to an alleged doping ring in Normandy.

British internet pharmacy owner gets nine months suspended sentence.

An East London man was today sentenced to a total of nine months imprisonment suspended for 12 months for conspiracy, money laundering and numerous medicines offences.

Aziz Bharmal of Tower Hamlets pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import prescription only medicines as well as unlicensed generic drugs. He also pleaded guilty to importing a controlled Class C drug, Diazepam.

Other charges to which he entered a guilty plea included possession with intent to supply prescription only medicines, controlled Class C drugs and the unlicensed erectile dysfunction drug, Kamagra.

There was also one count of money laundering to which he pleaded guilty having laundered approximately £76,000 through his own bank account between 2007 and 2008.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) were notified of a website AngloPharmacy which was offering for sale a variety of unlicensed pharmacy and prescription only medicines.

The MHRA visited Bharmal’s residential address and seized huge quantities of the generic unlicensed erectile dysfunction drug, Kamagra, as well as prescription only medicines (POMs) such as apomorphine, zolpidem and fluoxetine.

Investigators also seized 24,640 tablets of a Class C controlled drug Diazepam.

MHRA Head of Operations Danny Lee-Frost said, “Mr Bharmal is neither a doctor nor a pharmacist in the UK and he is therefore supplying these medicines in breach of the Medicines Act.

“He is a criminal out to make a profit at the expense of vulnerable and ill people.”

Botswanan athlete stabs girlfriend in Australia blames steroids and gets just 200 hours community service ?

Roid rage was the trigger for a violent attack in which a University of Wollongong student repeatedly stabbed his fiancee with scissors, a court has heard.

Marshall Kuda Mahube used anabolic steroids heavily in the months leading up to the August 23 attack, despite knowing the potential risks involved, Wollongong Local Court heard yesterday.

Realising he was becoming “testy” and “excitable”, the 23-year-old had stopped using the drug in early August but was still suffering the effects some three weeks later when he lashed out at his fiancee after he had a bad day.

During the violent outburst, Mahube hit his fiancee in the face and then stabbed her multiple times with scissors in the back and legs while the pair argued at his Keiraville flat.

Tensions between the pair had boiled over after the girl phoned him several times at the University of Wollongong to check on him, as he had been unfaithful in the past.

During the unprovoked attack Mahube allegedly called the girl a “fat bitch”, then stabbed her twice in the back and four times in the legs with scissors, the court was told previously.

She grabbed a pillow to protect herself and escaped to a friend’s house before she was taken to Wollongong Hospital where she underwent surgery on her shoulder.

Yesterday the court heard the 23-year-old has always been a keen athlete, successfully representing his home country of Botswana in the African Games before travelling to Australia to study.

However, the student revealed to the court his passion for being fit and strong took on a new meaning after he arrived in Australia, and he is now paying the price, having lost his relationship and suffered problems with his reproductive organs as a result of his drug use.

In a letter tendered to court, Mahube, who no longer lives in the region, apologised for his behaviour and the damage it had caused to his victim. He was supported in court by his parents, who had travelled from Botswana for the court case.

Sentencing Mahube, Magistrate Chris McRobert acknowledged he had no history of violence and was otherwise well respected by his peers.

However, Mr McRobert said it was troubling Mahube took the drugs, knowing how potentially harmful they could be. He subsequently ordered the student to perform 200 hours community service for his crime.

Outraged at the finding, Mahube’s former fiancee screamed at him as she left the room. “I’ll be scarred for life because of what you’ve done … I hope you rot in hell,” she said.

Stem cell doping the next big thing ?

A happy accident may hold the key to healing muscle diseases and granting humans incredible physiques. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Washington discovered that stem cells injected into mouse muscles led to increased growth for the rest of the mouse’s life. Young mice with injured legs were given donor muscle stem cells from other young mice. Those injuries not only healed, but muscle mass increased 50% and muscle volume increased by an incredible 170%!

Performance tests show the muscles were twice as strong as normal, and still above average when you control for size. Two years later, about the lifetime of a mouse, the legs were still bigger and stronger than normal, much to the scientists surprise. The study was recently reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine. I had a chance to speak with Bradley Olwin at UC Boulder to discuss his work and the possible applications in the future. He thinks that the muscle growth effect, if it could be reproduced in humans, may be a means to treat degenerative illnesses like Muscular Dystrophy. I think that this is another step towards super powered humans.

Future doping oral EPO booster drug appears to work.

Massive increases in natural erythropoietin (EPO) production occurred in dialysis patients as well as healthy volunteers given an investigational oral drug that promotes release of the red blood cell growth factor, according to results of a small trial.

The phase I trial, conducted among 12 dialysis patients and six healthy individuals, found that plasma EPO levels increased from 13- to 31-fold following a single dose of FG-2216, an orally active prolyl-hydroxylase inhibitor.

Landis claims clenbuterol use is widespread in cycling.

The use of the banned muscle-building and weight-loss stimulant that Tour de France champion Alberto Contador tested positive for is widespread in cycling, according to disgraced American cyclist Floyd Landis.

Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour title because of doping, told German television on Monday that he knows riders take clenbuterol.

“I think that the risk of taking clenbuterol is higher now than it was earlier, when there weren’t any training controls,” Landis said. “There is still the risk of being caught even if it is rather small now, since the product has usually degraded when the control takes place.

“You don’t know what risks people will take to win a race.”

Contador, who won his third Tour title earlier this year, said his positive test for clenbuterol was the result of eating contaminated meat. He is facing a two-year ban and could be stripped of his victory at an upcoming hearing before the Spanish cycling federation.

Landis has previously alleged that Lance Armstrong and members of their former U.S. Postal team systematically doped. A grand jury in Los Angeles has been hearing evidence from an investigation for months in closed sessions.

Landis said Monday that cycling’s governing body “protects some people and not others.”

“That is the way they manipulate results and create stars,” said Landis, who acknowledged his own doping history when he rode for U.S. Postal and Phonak. “It is easy to take anabolics, whether it is testosterone, growth hormone or something like that; and EPO and to make blood transfusions. You can easily do all of that without getting caught, and we routinely did it.”

Armstrong, a seven-time Tour winner, has always denied doping.

No extra jail time for pharmacist convicted in Mobile steroids case.

A federal judge here last week sentenced a pharmacist to six months in prison for identity theft in a health care fraud case but agreed to let him serve it at the same time he serves a 6½-year sentence on a steroids conspiracy charge.

U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade already had sentenced Jodi Carl Silvio to 6½ years in prison for the steroids conviction and for health care fraud in the other case.

Silvio pleaded guilty to the health care fraud charge but was prepared to go to trial on a charge of aggravated identity theft, which would have triggered a mandatory, consecutive two-year sentence if he was convicted.

After Granade handed down the 6½-year sentence on the steroids charge, though, prosecutors agreed to let the defendant plead guilty to unlawful use of identification, which does not carry a mandatory-minimum sentence.

“No real impact,” declared defense attorney Bradley Murray.

Silvio admitted that as owner of Medicap Pharmacy in Bay Minette, he transferred 34 brand-name prescriptions to his store from CVS and Winn-Dixie, using his ex-wife’s name and insurance information.

Silvio was one of the owners of Applied Pharmacy Services, which was at the center of a Mobile-based steroids conspiracy. Silvio also served as chief pharmacist at one time for the compounding pharmacy.