Bostin Loyd and Jerry Ward Part 2: Research Chemicals and the Law

Last week I wrote an article breaking down the interviews preceding the Transformix Peptides bust. Specifically, I addressed two bodybuilding influencers, Bostin Loyd and Jerry Ward, who assisted a government prosecution by providing information to federal agents. This week I’m going to unpack the interviews and indictment further, along with the research chemical market, and answer some questions that popped up over the past week. Finally, as both men had repeated confrontations with Anthony Novak and Spencer Gill, the owners of Transformix, over the legality of research chemicals, I’ll cover that as well.

If you’re involved in any stage of the research chemical market, I’m writing this for you. If you own a research chemical company, you should already know what I’m about to tell you (and I’ll guarantee that you don’t). If you are a sponsored athlete for a research chemical company, or your hustle is shilling research chems on a podcast, or even through an affiliate code, you absolutely need to know what I’m about to tell you (and again, I can guarantee that you don’t). Finally, even if you’re just a research chem consumer, you’ll want to know exactly what I’m about to tell you – because starting with Transformix, we are now seeing the end consumer getting penalized for being on a customer list.

The Research Chemical Market Explained

In this context, when we talk about “research chemicals” we are talking about image and performance enhancing drugs, labeled “for research only” or “not for human consumption” (or whatever), sold without a prescription, to an end user who intends to use the drug personally. Transformix Peptides was a so-called research chemical company. They labeled their drugs “for research purposes only,” but actually intended their customers to ingest and inject them. If you’re unfamiliar with the presumed legal cover provided by this sort of labeling, the premise is (I think): chemicals not intended for human consumption may be sold without a prescription, even if they might require a prescription to purchase from a pharmacy or be entirely illegal to dispense or sell in other contexts.

This is sort of true. But labeling their drugs “Not for Human Consumption,” and “Research Chemicals” didn’t prevent Transformix being indicted. As you’re about to undefstand, using those labels was actually a criminal act in itself.

Basically, think of it like this: you must be 21 years old to legally purchase alcohol to drink. The local liquor store must ensure that everyone buying a bottle of alcohol from them is at least 21 years of age. But you can go to the local pharmacy and purchase a bottle of rubbing alcohol at any age. Both bottles (from the liquor store and the pharmacy) contain alcohol, maybe in the same concentration, both are sold in a bottle, both can get you drunk, but only one is illegal for sale to those under 21 years of age. So as you can see, depending on what the bottle says (which indicates the intent of the manufacturer) and the purpose for which it’s being sold, it might be totally legal for sale to anyone, or it may be restricted to those 21 years of age or more. This is the legal reasoning behind research chemicals.

This door only swings one way; you can’t purchase a bottle of Everclear by telling the cashier that you intend to strip paint with it, and not imbibe it.

If we look at the legitimate/legal research chemical market, this involves companies like Sigma-Aldrich or Cayman Chemical. These companies sell “reference standards” — ultra high purity samples of a drug, used for analytical/comparison purposes against drugs being used in a laboratory setting –without a prescription. Sigma and Cayman are legitimately selling chemicals for research purposes (hence = research chemicals). These chemicals can be used (for example) to calibrate a high performance liquid chromatograph for anti-doping purposes, for example. In that context, selling clenbuterol (legitimately for research only) is now just like the rubbing alcohol, legal for sale without restriction to the end consumer.

A Legal Gray Zone

“The…market is a gray area…” – Bostin Loyd, 9/7/2016, FDA Memorandum of Interview.

I’m sure you’ve heard people saying that research chemicals are a gray area of the law. I’ve heard it countless times. Or how about this one, “nobody gets busted for research chemicals…”

Actually, it’s not gray at all. And people regularly get arrested and prosecuted for selling research chems. Companies such as Transformix Peptides, All American Peptide (AAP), Pure Peptides, ProPeptides, Precision Peptides, DNA Peptides, Paradigm Peptides, Lion Nutrition, Great White Peptides, and IBE/Innovative Body Enhancement, all faced felony charges, and all ended with guilty pleas or verdicts. Some did time. Some attorneys even lost their licenses trying to play the “gray area” card for these companies. Claiming that research chemicals occupy a legal “gray area” or that “nobody ever goes down” for selling them, is just not true.

Author’s note: You probably noticed that all of these companies (obviously) were selling peptides as research chemicals. Or put another way, every peptide that they sold was labeled as a research chemical. For now I’m just going to refer to them all as research chemicals, because for our purposes here, they’re completely interchangeable (and because I plan to write up the peptide market in a future piece).

It is “…well known in the body building world that people sell peptides stating for research purposes only, but know full well that they (peptides) are being sold for [human] usage…” Jerry Ward 11/15/2016, FDA Memorandum of Interview.

As Ward points out, the research chemical industry exists because the bottles may say “for research purposes only,” but the customer and the seller both understand that they’re really for human use. This is the “gray” area Bostin was talking about. The problem here is that…well, these guys can’t even decide on what’s gray and what’s not – Bostin, Ward, and Transformix each had different opinions about what, exactly, is legal…

In the Spring of 2015, after he’d been working with them for about half a year, Jerry Ward was contacted via text by Transformix and asked if he would write an online review of their products that included usage instructions. He replied that human consumption of these products was illegal, and he was not willing to make a video instructing viewers on how to mix, dilute, and inject them, because that too would be illegal. Transformix pushed back, saying that it was legal. Ward later provided those text messages to the FDA Special Agent investigating the case. Since this article is about the Transformix prosecution, I’m sure you can guess that Ward had the better of the arguments.

For his part, Bostin pushed back on the sale of hCG by Transformix’s sister company US Fusion Supply (which shared Anthony Novak and Spencer Gill as owners), telling them that it was illegal. He was told that their attorney assured them that nobody would come after them for selling it (spoiler alert – the FDA and DOJ did, in fact, come after them for selling it). All of the points in this round went to Bostin.

For his part, Ward was also aware of US Fusion Supply selling hCG (and clomiphene), which he said were illegal to sell (without a prescription) due to their being prescription drugs (basically correct)– an opinion he relayed to the FDA Special Agent. This dialogue, memorialized in text messages, was provided by Ward ( to be used as evidence) during his first interview.

After making a video in which he injected pramipexole, which was available from Transformix, Loyd was told that it was illegal and that (as a result) “they could get shut down.” Gray area or not, the owners of Transformix, in Bostin Loyd’s opinion, “know 100% for sure that what they are selling is illegal.” Bostin later relayed these conversations to an FDA Special Agent. Let’s be honest, ok? Everyone selling research chems is aware that it’s illegal; they just hope that they don’t get busted or failing that, to at least stay out of jail and keep some of the money.

In all of the time I’ve been around, I have seen only two research companies close up shop and move on, without being indicted and losing everything. The owner of one was later indicted for something else. The other got away with everything. That’s one out of a hundred.

It’s Black and White

So what’s gray about this? As Ward explained (correctly, above), research chem companies attempt to circumvent the law by offering “not for human use” products for sale, while their customers know that this is just a fig leaf. By never directly (e.g., on their own website or through the company’s social medias accounts) stating what these research chemicals are for, companies believe they can avoid liability.

So on the one hand, the company is selling IGF1-Lr3, and stating that it is not for human consumption. But on the other hand, Bostin Loyd is making a video injecting IGF1-Lr3, telling everyone how much he uses, and that it’s available from Transformix. This separation between the company (saying the drugs are for research only) and the influencer (explaining how to use them) is to expected (wished, really) to create enough legal distance to plausibly argue that the company did not intend the illegal use of their products. Hey, you can drink a bottle of rubbing alcohol, right? That doesn’t mean the pharmacy broke any laws by selling it to you.

But wait – wasn’t Bostin a 1/3 owner of Transformix Peptides? Well, according to his FDA interview, Bostin didn’t have actual control of the company or access to the books. Decisions were made without his input and he had no access to the bank accounts. Based on his monthly paychecks, he seemed to make money exclusively from his affiliate code, directly proportionate to the sales attributable to him. This is important, because on paper Bostin was an owner, but in reality, he had no control over the company.

In legal terms, having control over a company is called being a “Responsible Corporate Officer.” A Responsible Corporate Officer is criminally liable responsible for their company’s actions under a legal mechanism known as “Park doctrine.” This allows corporate officers to be punished for their company’s illegal activity. It also imposes responsibility on corporate officers to prevent and correct any violations. This is also called vicarious liability.

So, when Bostin uploaded a video to YouTube in which, while wearing a Transformix Peptides t-shirt, in which he injected himself with IGF1-Lr3 and hGH Frag, while stating that he works with Transformix Peptides and that “You can get them on Transformix. This is the real shit,” the owners of the company were absolutely responsible for those statements. This is why the government included these statements as evidence in the Transformix indictment (page 22). Those statements carried the same weight as if the owners of the company made them directly.

Park doctrine is no joke—the CEO of a dietary supplement, food, or pharmaceutical company (e.g., companies regulated under the FDCA) may be prosecuted for an employee’s actions (or inactions), regardless of whether the CEO actually knows what was happening (or not happening). This means the owner of a research chem company can not simply turn a blind eye to the fact that their products are promoted (by their own salespeople, like Bostin and Ward) for human use. Under Park doctrine, the statements being made by those two may as well have been made by the president of the company. This is why the two legitimate owners were prosecuted, unlike Bostin (as an on-paper-owner of the company) who was never It’s not enough to have the title of “owner” or “founder,” (or even “CEO”), there must also be commensurate authority within the company. Bostin was a founder, and an owner, but lacked any decision-making power (he couldn’t even audit the company to verify accuracy of his pay).

Could Bostin have been held criminally liable too? Of course…he was promoting illegal drugs and getting a cut of the sales (his affiliate commission). Every sponsored athlete, online affiliate, and influencer, shilling research chemicals (whether they’re oral aromatase inhibitors or injectable peptides) can be prosecuted. I’ve never seen it happen. But just like the Feds have never gone after customers (until now)…that can change any time.

That being said, there is nothing in Bostin’s interview with FDA that makes me believe that he was offered anything in return (he was not threatened with arrest nor offered anything of value). This applies to Jerry Ward as well. There was no tangible benefit for either man to speak to the Feds. Since they were involved and were making money from Transformix, they weren’t merely witnesses (disinterested third parties who saw a crime), but they’re definitely lower case ‘i” informants, and nothing more. I don’t have access to Grand Jury testimony from either man (if it exists, it would be sealed), and since this case never went to trial, neither man testified in court.

Bostin and Ward provided the government with evidence that the owners of Transformix were aware that their products were being used by humans and not for legitimate research. But this was already known to the government, who had seen videos from Bostin and Ward’s videos. Besides their account of personal conversations that they’d had with the owners (which were obviously quite valuable to the prosecution), literally everything they said during interviews was already available online. Except maybe one thing…

Boston – Massachusetts, not Loyd

At one point in his interview, Bostin told the Feds about a domestic source that was supplying Transformix with peptides and other research chemicals, located in Boston, Massachusetts. It is my belief that, upon learning of a large scale domestic wholesaler, this may now have been the government’s primary target. Whoever it was, it’s clear that Transformix was not the main target here. The real target was further up the food chain.

This is my belief because there are about a dozen crimes that are committed each time a research chemical is sold – it’s wire fraud due to the online transaction, it’s mail fraud once it’s mailed out, it’s bank fraud once the money is deposited, then it’s money laundering once it’s spent, etc, etc. When two or more people agree to commit any of those crimes, the perpetrators can also be hit either with an overarching Conspiracy charge or even a particularized conspiracy to commit the specific offenses (Transformix was hit with Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud). In addition, each instance may be charged separately. Each time a company mails out an order of chems is another potential charge…as is each time a deposit is made, and so on down the line.

Normally, when prosecutors are faced with thousands of mailings and orders, they’ll select a few of the largest or just enough to hit a certain monetary threshold for sentencing purposes. Sometimes they’ll include major purchases in the indictment for show purposes – for example, instead of charging money laundering based on a particular deposit, they’ll include that quarter million dollar Ferrari or Richard Mille. Every Instagram flex is another piece of evidence that not only brings attention to the illegal research chem business, but also aligns the jury against the defendant(s).

In this particular instance, the prosecutors charged one count of Conspiracy and one count of Conspiracy to Commit Mail and Wire Fraud, while exclusively listing bank deposits and omitting the late model Corvette driven by one of the owners (which is noted in the Special Agent’s Report of Investigation). This is an odd choice – charging defendants with a conspiracy (essentially an agreement to commit a crime) but not charging the actual crime itself. In this case, prosecutors opted to charge a bare minimum of offenses – which could then be reduced, once Transformix helped them prosecute the domestic supplier in Boston Of course, if they didn’t want to help, then all of those other charges could be added later in a superseding indictment.

If we take a look at the docket for the Transformix case, we see that the date of the (sealed) indictment was 3/20/18. The date the 51.1K Letters were filed was 10/21/19 — this is a government motion for sentencing below the guideline range, based on “substantial assistance” in prosecuting others. The sentencing memorandums, in which the prosecution notes that Gill and Novak began cooperating “soon after” being arrested, were filed on 4/27/20. So these guys were working to set other people up for over a year and a half. I suspect that they didn’t just take down their supplier in Boston, and the three customers who were publicly sanctioned by the United States Anti Doping Agency, but most likely many others in the industry with whom they had any contact. In the end, they helped the government enough to have the 371 Conspiracy charge dropped, which allowed Anthony Novak and Spencer Gill to and plead guilty to just the mail and wire fraud charges.

But wait, I can hear you saying…the people who buy research chemicals are purposely buying them for their own use. They’re not being defrauded! And you’d be 100% correct. So how is this mail fraud? Or wire fraud? Let’s talk about United States v. Bradshaw.

James Bradshaw was a powerlifter back in the ’80s. He also ran a mail order steroid business. This was before the original Anabolic Steroid Control Act was passed into law.

The various acts that constitute criminal violations of the FDCA are set forth starting at 21 U.S.C. § 331. The government is able to prosecute these crimes without proving intent (e.g., they’re “strict liability” crimes). Proving intent (or it being a second offense) normally elevates the crime into a stricter penalty category. When you see an indictment referencing 21 U.S.C. § 331, or other statutes generally in that neighborhood, you know that it’s got something to do with the FDCA. Transformix Peptides were charged with 18 U.S.C. § 371 and § 1449 – conspiracy charges that don’t appear in the FDCA. As you can imagine, this is atypical for an investigation led by the FDA.

Bradshaw was selling mail order steroids to customers who absolutely wanted steroids. In fact, some of Bradshaw’s customers wrote letters to be used as evidence in the case (they wrote letters to be used as evidence that they were not the victims of fraud). In these letters, the customers stated that they were fully aware that they were buying anabolic steroids without a prescription, some of which were not FDA-approved (think Primobolan and such), and that they wanted these drugs.

When he was busted by the FDA, instead of being charged with violating the Controlled Substance Act (which is primarily enforced by DEA), Bradshaw was charged with section 21 U.S.C. § 333(b) (which as you now know, is found under the FDCA). This was a new legal theory, as the prosecution was claiming that “intent to defraud” didn’t just apply to defrauding the public, but that it applied to the FDA as well. In essence, the idea was that since the FDA is charged with oversight of the pharmaceutical pipeline (from the first clinical trial phase through to the aftermarket monitoring), selling anabolic steroids (outside that pipeline) is defrauding the FDA out of their legitimate function as a government agency.

The prosecution was successful in that case, Bradshaw lost his appeal, and this allowed that opinion to function as precedent for all future cases. This why the “not for human consumption” or “for research use only,” labeling is actually a crime in itself (and not a clever way to circumvent the law). And this is also how, four decades later, we end up seeing Transformix Peptides running an illegal research chemical business, where they’re convicted not for actually selling drugs, but on a fraud charges that aren’t even part of the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act.

End Notes:

1. The FOIA materials (the memorandums and investigative report) referenced herein are fully cited in part one.

2. This is a recent case where the executives of a company received prison time for the actions of employees, of which he was unaware:

https://time.com/3821050/egg-company-execs-get-jail-time-for-food-safety-breach

3. This is the Bradshaw appeal. As you can see, “The various acts that constitute criminal violations of the FDC Act are set forth in 21 U.S.C. § 331. All of these violations are misdemeanors regardless of the violator’s intent.” This case is the first instance of the prosecution offering to the court an interpretation of the statute that includes defrauding the FDA:

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/840/871/157046

4. If you’re interested in further reading on the “defrauding the government” topic, you can also check out: United States v. Mitcheltree, 940 F.2d 1329 (10th Cir. 1991), and United States v. Cambra, 933 F.2d 752 (9th Cir. 1991).