Texans plead guilty in steroid probe
Owner of Sugar Land distributor agrees to help prosecutors
April 21, 2007
ALBANY, N.Y. – The owner and an employee of a Texas company that processed orders for drugs, including steroids, pleaded guilty Friday to felony charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in a multistate probe into steroid sales.
Eugene Bolton, 40, owner of Sugar Land, Texas-based Cellular Nucleonic Advantage, and 38-year-old Monday Miller, an employee, admitted to one drug count each. Bolton faces up to six months in jail and five years' probation and Miller faces five years' probation.
"People would call them based on their ads in muscle magazines and car magazines and say, 'I want to get bigger,' " prosecutor Christopher Baynes said.
Bolton's company was in business for about three years, first selling supplements and then steroids, Baynes said.
Bolton and Miller acknowledged taking orders by phone for drugs, filling out prescriptions and faxing them to physicians, who would get $50 for signing each one without seeing the patients.
The prescriptions were then faxed to, and filled by, Signature Pharmacy, an Orlando, Fla.-based company that is at the center of the investigation, the defendants said.
In New York, it is illegal for a doctor to prescribe drugs without examining the patient, and illegal to dispense prescription drugs without a valid prescription.
Meanwhile, Albany District Attorney David Soares said his office has delayed sending letters to sports leagues identifying athletes from client records of Signature Pharmacy.
A Florida judge sealed records in the case because of privacy concerns, so Soares said he is not going ahead with the letters for now. The attorney general in Florida has asked the judge to reverse the decision.
Soares said his office used an undercover investigator posing as a doctor who signed prescriptions for CNA and other businesses.
"We continue to build our case," Soares said Friday. He called Signature Pharmacy "the big fish."
Albany County Judge Thomas Breslin said a June 22 sentencing date for Bolton and Miller may be postponed so they can testify against others in the case. Both remained free on bond. Failure to cooperate fully means he can impose 7-year prison sentences, Breslin warned.
Four Signature owners and employees have pleaded not guilty to drug charges. An attorney for the business has said it has done nothing wrong and will be cleared.
