Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals CEO Jared Wheat Looking at 3rd Prison Term if Convicted of Selling Supplements Spiked with Anabolic Steroids

Jared Wheat, the Chief Executive Officer and owner of the dietary supplement company Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, has been accused of spiking Hi-Tech products with undeclared illegal anabolic steroids. If convicted, Wheat faces going to federal prison for the third time in his life on drug trafficking charges and for the second time involving anabolic steroids.

Wheat, along with Hi-Tech Vice President of Manufacturing John Schopp, were charged with manufacturing and distributing Schedule III controlled substances (steroids), selling misbranded drugs (Lovastatin), conspiracy, money laundering and fraud in an indictment filed on September 28, 2017.

The Hi-Tech products accused of being spiked with anabolic steroids were Superdrol, Equibolin, 1-AD, 1-Testosterone and Androdiol. Wheat vehemently denied that any of the five products were spiked with controlled anabolic steroids. Wheat insisted that they all only contained DHEA and/or DHEA isomers.

Federal prosecutors alleged that all five Hi-Tech “supplements” contained a combination of two or more of the following Schedule III controlled anabolic steroids: androstanedione, 4-androstenediol, 5-androstenediol and boldione. 

All of these steroidal compounds were once legally sold as dietary supplement ingredients under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA). However, Congress eventually reclassified these steroidal compounds (prohormones) as Controlled Substances with the passage of the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2004 and the Designer Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 2014.

Wheat rejected the government’s allegations as “bogus” and “inaccurate”. While Hi-Tech’s Superdrol, Equiboin, 1-AD, 1-Testosterone and Androdiol products are commonly recognized as the names of banned prohomornal and designer steroidal ingredients, Wheat claimed that the products have long since been reformulated to exclude any illegal designer prohormones.

“I got out the DASCA-type of compounds back in 2004, so when everybody else continued to sell designer prohormones…I got out," Wheat told Natural Product Insider. “I read the law that if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a friggin’ duck. We stayed out of the hormone game, with the exception of DHEA. All of those products are DHEA and/or isomers of DHEA, like 1-DHEA or 4-DHEA or 7-keto."

A conviction of any of the charges would likely result in a very long prison sentence given Wheat’s history of federal drug-related convictions.

During the 1990s, Wheat was sentenced to 32 months in prison for operating a high school Ecstasy dealing ring. Wheat dismissed the conviction as a misguided attempt to score some Ecstasy in order to impress some teenage girls as a “friendship type of thing”. 

In 2008, Wheat was sentenced to 50 months in prison for conspiring to violate federal prohibitions against mail and wire fraud and the importation and distribution of adulterated, unapproved, and mislabeled drugs. The conviction involved the Belizean-based pharmaceutical company Planet Pharmacy founded by Wheat. Planet Pharmacy manufactured cheap generic versions of various prescription drugs including the anabolic steroids Dianabol, Winstrol, Anavar and Anadrol as well other popular pharmaceutical drugs such as Viagra, Cialis, Clomid, Nolvadex, Xanax, Valium, Ambien, Vioxx, Lipitor and Zoloft. While Wheat expressly avoided directly marketing the generic drugs to Americans in order to stay compliant with federal law, prosecutors held him criminally responsible for importing the drugs into the United States because he knew his Mexican distributors were doing it for him.

Wheat has been released on bond but not without being forced into an agreement to stop selling DMAA (1,3-dimethylamylamine). Hi-Tech had been selling DMAA-containing products, such as Yellow Scorpion, Black Widow, White Lightning and Lipodrene Hardcore, in spite of government efforts to remove DMAA from the marketplace. Wheat and Hi-Tech are engaged in an ongoing civil lawsuit with the government defending his right to continue selling DMAA as a DSHEA-compliant dietary supplement. In a separate case, 

Wheat’s indictment and arrest wasn’t his only bad news in October 2017. A federal judge also ordered Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals to pay a $40 million compensatory penalty in an unrelated case with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) involving false advertising claims.

Source:

Myers, S. (October 5, 2017). Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals Executives Arrested, Defendant Calls Charges ‘Bogus’. Retrieved from naturalproductsinsider.com/blogs/sports-nutrition/2017/10/hi-tech-pharmaceuticals-executives-arrested-defen.aspx