American Pharmaceutical Group owner sentenced for steroid, HGH distribution

[Steroid News]

Businessman faces prison for steroid ring
[SIZE=-1]Providence Journal, RI[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Daniel McGlone previously pleaded guilty to 50 counts, including conspiracy, illegal drug distribution, money laundering and health care fraud. Prosecutors will recommend a maximum sentence of four years and nine months in prison during a court hearing this morning.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]McGlone operated American Pharmaceutical Group out of his apartment in New Brunswick, N.J., and advertised in magazines geared to bodybuilders. When customers contacted McGlone, including some from Rhode Island, he advised them on which drugs they should take.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=-1]Prosecutors said McGlone paid doctors to write medically unnecessary prescriptions for hundreds of patients they never met or examined.[/SIZE]

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A federal judge today sentenced two New York physicians, one whose license to practice had been revoked, for illegally prescribing anabolic steroids and human Growth Hormone (hGH).

United States Attorney Robert Clark Corrente announced the sentences, which U.S. District Court Judge William E. Smith imposed in U.S. District Court, Providence. Judge Smith sentenced Ana Maria Santi to two years in prison, followed by a year of home confinement, and Victor Mariani to one year home confinement, followed by two years probation.

Judge Smith ordered Santi to forfeit $24,340, and Mariani $34,845, and fined Mariani $6,000. He also ordered Santi to repay Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island $19,205 that it had reimbursed customers who were illicitly prescribed drugs.

In July, Santi pleaded guilty to conspiracy, drug distribution, and health care fraud. Mariani admitted in March to conspiracy and distributing steroids and hGH.

At the plea hearings, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adi Goldstein said the government could prove that Santi and Mariani engaged in a conspiracy with Daniel McGlone, who operated American Pharmaceutical Group (APG) out of his home in North New Brunswick, New Jersey. At McGlones request, Santi and Mariani fraudulently wrote prescriptions for steroids and hGH. McGlone then had the prescriptions filled at compounding pharmacies and shipped to the end users, who had ordered the drugs from McGlone over the Internet or through ads in body-building magazines.

Neither Santi, whose license to practice medicine had been revoked in New York in 1999, nor Mariani, who was a licensed physician during the conspiracy, ever examined or even spoke to the end users for whom they wrote prescriptions.

Santi, operating in Queens, New York, wrote the prescriptions in the name of another doctor, who at the time was retired and living in a nursing home in California, and who has since died. Santi admitted writing an average of 100 prescriptions a month for APG. She admitted writing prescriptions for nearly 400 APG customers, and also admitted writing prescriptions for steroids and hGH for three other companies. McGlone paid her $25 per prescription.


Mariani maintained a practice in Queens and Manhattan. He admitted writing an average of 100 prescriptions a month at McGlones request, and wrote prescriptions for 274 of APGs customers. He also wrote prescriptions for at least one other company.

McGlone has pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy, and is scheduled to be sentenced on February 1.

The charges resulted from an investigation by the Food and Drug Administration Task Force, the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, the U.S. Postal Investigation Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Goldstein is prosecuting the case.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ri/press_release/nov2007/santi_mariani_sentence.html