Rick Collins, the leading legal expert on anabolic steroids and sports nutrition, has been the go-to guy for sports nutrition companies targeted by the federal government for illegally selling prohormone and steroidal ingredients as dietary supplements.
Collins’ firm has represented numerous supplements companies, including “Anabolic Xtreme”, “Advanced Muscle Science”, “Culver Concepts”, “Bradley Asgard”, “Bjorklund”, “Axis Labs”, “IForce Nutrition” and “American Cellular Labs”, accused of engaging in such conduct.
In each and every case, Collins has successfully negotiated corporate plea agreements that kept the principals of the company from personally facing felony charges and imprisonment.
In a statement emailed to MESO-Rx, Collins shared his general thoughts about practicing in this area of law.
He also offered a somber warning to supplement companies that continue to distribute illegal steroidal compounds as dietary supplements.
Thanks for contacting me about this. As we discussed by telephone, I’m obviously very pleased with the resolutions of all the prohormone cases on which I’ve served as counsel. The pleas were the result of back-and-forth exchanges, conferences and negotiations I had with the various U.S. Attorney’s Offices over a span of many, many months. It’s been a long journey.
I work hard, Millard, and I’m proud of what I do on behalf of my clients. Nobody went to jail or was convicted of a crime. But rather than speaking now on the clients’ behalf or detailing any particular matter, I’ll offer you instead my own general thoughts as the only lawyer I know of practicing extensively in this area.
Look, any criminal defense lawyer worth his salt will tell you that whenever the federal government gets you in their sights, the potential for bad things to happen to you escalates exponentially. It’s a bad place to be. Most criminal defense practitioners will tell you that the deck is heavily stacked against the accused. Most targets who are prosecuted for felonies by the Department of Justice go to prison, plain and simple.
Corporate pleas – without any individual people being convicted – are so rare in federal court that most criminal defense attorneys have never even handled one. But I have to admit that the investigative agents as well as the prosecutors I dealt with in these jurisdictions were reasonable. They were tough, but they listened and were fair. While in some cases we disagreed on certain legal points, they were smart and came to understand the unique realities and circumstances of the prohormone market as it existed several years ago, as well as the complexity of the overlapping and intermingled laws in the area of anabolic steroids, steroid precursors, dietary ingredients and misbranded and unapproved drugs. Holding the corporate entities accountable, rather than the individual company principals, was the totally appropriate way to dispose of these cases. The companies accepted full responsibility for their mistakes. Fines and money forfeitures were part of the deals.
The Government was greatly interested in finally ending the market for these types of illegal products and in protecting consumers, so in many cases the Government insisted that the corporations and their principals agreed to implement third party testing protocols. When imposed at sentence, those protocols will mean that every future batch or lot of product ingredients will be tested to ensure that they are free of steroids.
Moving forward, these companies will have an opportunity to reconfigure the sports nutrition industry and set new standards for quality control. I am also representing several additional companies who were engaged in similar conduct dating back to the same period. I hope to resolve those matters in a similar fashion. However, for the future, I strongly suspect that the Government will attempt to take a harder line, arguing that any entities which are today still selling illegal steroidal ingredients as supplements are sufficiently on notice for the company principals to be fair game for indictment. Be warned. That’s not a good place to be.
Companies:
Anabolic Resources, Inc., doing business as Anabolic Xtreme Superdrol (methasteron aka methyldrostanolone aka 17 ?-Hydroxy-2?, 17?-dimethyl-5?-androstane-3-one)
Axis Labs LLC “Monster Caps” ( Superdrol, Halodrol and Madol)
DCD, LLC dba Advanced Muscle Science – “Dienedrone” (Estra-4,9-diene-3,17-dione) and “Liquidrone” (Estra-4,9-diene-3, 17-dione)
Nutrition Distribution, Inc., which also did business as Anabolic Xtreme – Hyperdrol (6-Bromodione aka 6-Bromo-androstane-3,17-dione)
R & D Holdings, LLC dba Culver Concepts, Bradley Asgard, and Bjorklund – “Orafinadrol 50” (Estra-4,9-diene-3,17-dione) and “Microdrol” (methasteron) and “Methyldrostanolone” (methasteron)
Tribravus Enterprises dba iForce – 1,4 AD Bold 200 (androstenedione), 17a PheraFLEX (Madol), Dymethazine (Superdrol) and Methadrol (Superdrol)
VMG Global dba American Cellular Labs Inc. – Tren Xteme (Estra-4,9-diene-3,17-dione) and Mass Xtreme (desoxymethyltestosterone, “DMT” and 17a-Methyl-etioallocholan-2-ene-17b-ol.)
About the author
Millard writes about anabolic steroids and performance enhancing drugs and their use and impact in sport and society. He discusses the medical and non-medical uses of anabolic-androgenic steroids while advocating a harm reduction approach to steroid education.
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