Rx For Trouble: Inside The Steroid Ring

THE PALM BEACH Rejuvenation Center is decidedly less exotic than its name might suggest. Wedged between a lawyer's office and a brokerage firm on the third floor of a dreary Jupiter, Fla., office building, it is a glorified boiler room, "basically a call center," as one employee explains. Yet investigators contend that the Palm Beach Rejuvenation Center (PBRC)--and dozens of so-called antiaging or wellness centers like it--is a vital component in a massive illegal distribution network that enabled customers to place orders over the Internet for performance-enhancing drugs, including steroids and human growth hormone (HGH).

"This is the newest frontier," says Christopher Baynes, a prosecutor in New York's Albany County, whose office initiated the investigation three years ago. "The guy with the black bag at the gym now has his own website."

On Feb. 27, SI accompanied investigators from multiple law-enforcement agencies (box, page 62) on a raid of PBRC. Simultaneously, agents in Orlando were raiding Signature Pharmacy, a compounding pharmacy that last year did more than $40 million in sales, much of it with PBRC. On Monday, PBRC co-owner Glen Stefano and 10 others pleaded not guilty to multiple charges during arraignment proceedings in Albany. Stefano was charged with illegally selling steroids and hormones. Earlier, Signature owners Robert Loomis and his wife, Naomi, were charged with criminal diversion of prescription medications, criminal sale of a controlled substance and insurance fraud.

It will take weeks, months perhaps, for authorities to sift through the client lists, hard drives, invoices and trash from Dumpsters that were seized in the raids--more than a ton of documents was confiscated. And when they're through, investigators believe they'll unearth the names of hundreds, even thousands of clients who have received a wide array of drugs; and that list is likely to include prominent athletes.

Just consider the fruits of a similar Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA) raid last fall, code-named Operation Netroids. On Aug. 29, agents converged on Applied Pharmacy Services, a compounding pharmacy in Mobile. (A compounding pharmacy makes its own drugs generically.) Seized client records revealed the names of more than 20 athletes in a variety of sports who received drugs from Applied Pharmacy. A 37-page classified intelligence report reviewed by SI alleges that, among athletes:

? Outfielder Gary Matthews Jr., whose career year with the Texas Rangers in 2006 earned him a five-year, $50 million free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Angels, was sent Genotropin (glossary, page 63) in 2004. The prescription was written by a doctor at a now-defunct antiaging clinic in Florida. (Through his agent, Matthews declined comment, but the lawyer who represents the outfielder said last Saturday that Matthews has not broken any laws and would cooperate with the investigation.)

? Kurt Angle, a 1996 Olympic gold-medal-winning freestyle wrestler and now a star professional wrestler, received two prescriptions for trenbolone and one for nandrolone between October 2004 and February '05. (Angle did not return messages left with his spokesman.)

? Rangers outfielder Jerry Hairston Jr. received Genotropin, human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) and Clomiphene Citrate in 2004. One of Hairston's prescriptions was written by "A. Almarashi." Investigators believe Almarashi is an alias for a Queens, N.Y., doctor stripped of her medical license in 1999. She is awaiting trial on multiple charges after allegedly writing bogus prescriptions for thousands of online customers she never examined. ( Hairston, a third-generation major leaguer, emphatically denied any connection. "Not one time have I taken steroids or anything like that," he said last Thursday. "I would never do anything like that to jeopardize my career or my family's name.")

?In June 2004 a patient named Evan Fields picked up three vials of testosterone and related injection supplies from a Columbus, Ga., doctor, traced through Applied. Later that month Fields also obtained five vials of Saizen and three months later returned for treatment of hypogonadism, a condition whereby sex glands produce little or no hormones. Investigators noted that Fields shares both the birth date and home address of former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield. What's more, when SI called a phone number on a Post-It note attached to the Fields patient file, Holyfield answered. (Holyfield, who at 44 continues to fight professionally, told SI that he knew nothing of the drugs. Through Main Events, the promotional company that represents him, he released a statement denying any steroid use.)

? David Bell, a veteran of a dozen major league seasons, received six packages of HCG at a Philadelphia address last April, when he played for the Phillies. The cost was $128.80, and the drug was prescribed in conjunction with an Arizona antiaging facility. Bell acknowledges receiving the shipment but tells SI the drug was prescribed to him "for a medical condition," which he declined to disclose, citing his right to privacy.