Man, 48, pleads guilty to distributing steroids

June 15, 2007

A Catonsville man pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court to distributing vials and tablets of anabolic steroids over the Internet by importing the drugs from foreign sources and sending them to rented mailboxes reserved in false names, federal prosecutors said.

Michael Schlanger, 48, a former personal trainer for Bally's Total Fitness in Glen Burnie, could receive a maximum five years in prison and three years of supervised probation when he is sentenced Sept. 7, prosecutors said.

He was arrested Sept. 26 after federal authorities intercepted a package of steroids at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Authorities said the package was addressed to Country Crafts. FBI agents then found two other packages, one from China and one from Britain.

The agents said in court papers that they set up a controlled delivery to a UPS store in Severna Park and arrested the people who picked up the packages.

Authorities said they later found 40,000 vials and tablets of the drug in a locked chest. It was one of the largest stashes of man-made muscle enhancers ever found in the region, they said.

Prosecutors said yesterday that Schlanger had help from two co-conspirators who accepted packages of steroids and wired money to foreign companies.