Written by:
BRENDAN J. LYONS
October 13, 2007
An Albany County grand jury handed up a 22-count felony indictment late Friday against five Florida residents, including three pharmacists, who operated an Orlando pharmacy at the center of a nationwide steroids investigation.
The new counts include charges of enterprise corruption and conspiracy.
Four of those named in the indictment were already arrested on felony charges after a drug task force raided their Orlando business, Signature Pharmacy, in February. Husband and wife pharmacists Stan and Naomi Loomis, along with Stan Loomis' brother, Michael, also a pharmacist, and Kirk Calvert, the company's business manager, have been free on bond pending trial on a slew of felony drug charges.
A fifth defendant, Anthony Palladino, who was also a business manager at Signature Pharmacy, was named as a defendant in the new charges. Palladino has not been arrested. All of the defendants face arraignment on the new indictment in the coming weeks.
The new charges were handed up by a grand jury that heard testimony Friday from several witnesses, including a well-known Florida obstetrician, Dr. Claire D. Godfrey, who pleaded guilty in July and whose illicit prescription drug clients included at least two pro wrestlers and a top bodybuilder, the sources said. Several other witnesses who testified before the panel also have already pleaded guilty in the case.
"The defendants who've already pleaded guilty in the case provided us with a lot of valuable information that led to these new charges," said Assistant District Attorney Christopher Baynes.
Godfrey, 36, a former Mrs. Florida contestant who lives in central Florida's Seminole County, was one of several physicians who made money by selling bogus prescriptions, mostly for steroids, to people they never evaluated, according to prosecutors.
It's not clear whether more suspects could face charges, or, whether the grand jury is considering additional charges against a dozen remaining defendants who have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors have accused Signature Pharmacy of churning out millions of dollars in illegal prescriptions, mostly for steroids, through a maze of Internet-based "wellness centers" with the assistance of complicit doctors, according to indictments filed in Albany County.
During her guilty plea, Godfrey admitted under oath that she was steered to several "rejuvenation clinics" by executives at Signature Pharmacy. Those clinics generally were boiler rooms staffed by non-medical workers who solicited clients over the Internet and by telephone and designed prescription drug packages for them, often containing steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, authorities said.
Godfrey said she rarely had contact with any of the patients and was paid $50 per prescription. Over a six-month period ending in February, Godfrey wrote about $1.3 million worth of prescriptions, earning roughly $200,000, authorities said.
It's a felony in New York for a doctor to prescribe drugs without an in-person evaluation and Godfrey had many clients in this state, according to prosecutors.
Defense attorneys in the case have challenged that assertion, saying New York laws are ambiguous about a face-to-face evaluation and that physicians in Florida were not subject to the rules.
Among Godfrey's clients, according to law enforcement sources, were two pro wrestlers affiliated with World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., as well as Victor Martinez, 33, a top professional bodybuilder who won the Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition in Ohio in March. The sources declined to identify the wrestlers.
Most of the defendants who have pleaded guilty struck plea deals in which they may receive probation and no jail time as a result of their cooperation.
