Gym owner accused of running steroid ring
The Morgantown gym owner and four associates indicted for making and selling Human Growth Hormone and anabolic steroids to customers across the country allegedly used online message boards to source foreign suppliers as well as identify buyers.
Club 24 Fitness owner Carl R. Benedict, 49, of Morgantown and four associates — Richard J. Pinelli Jr., 27, of Mifflintown, Pennsylvania; Joseph B. Greco, 27, of New Castle, Pennsylvania; Derek S. Starn, 33, of Bridgeport, and Anthony F. DiDomenico III, 28, of Morgantown — were indicted Nov. 5 by a federal grand jury in Clarksburg on charges they conspired to distribute HGH and steroids and also laundered money.
DiDomenico also is charged with mailing controlled substances, possession with intent to distribute anabolic steroids, possession with intent to distribute HGH and maintaining drug-involved premises, while Pinelli faces additional charges of possession with intent to distribute anabolic steroids, possession with intent to distribute HGH and maintaining drug-involved premises. Greco also is charged with smuggling and possessing HGH with intent to distribute it.
HGH can be legitimately prescribed to adults suffering from conditions such as AIDS wasting or cachexia, short bowel syndrome and somatropin syndrome, the indictment said. It's gained notoriety in recent years in pro-sport ranks from athletes caught using illegally acquired HGH and steroids to enhance their performance.
“FDA has determined that the substances should only be used for certain purposes,” U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld said. “We tried to spell out in the indictment some of those legitimate purposes — there are certain medical conditions where HGH is appropriate for use, including AIDS. It is appropriate for certain uses if it's on that list for the FDA and if a physician prescribes it.
“It is not deemed appropriate or safe to be used for body building or weightlifting or trying to enhance performance on athletic field,” Ihlenfeld added. “When we become aware of something like this, obviously we pay attention to it.
The group allegedly smuggled the materials they needed in from China.
“You have a substance coming in from China, misrepresented as something other than HGH in an attempt to conceal what it was,” Ihlenfeld said. “Part of the reason we came on to this was it was represented that one package in particular that came from China was purported to contain computer hard drives when it actually contained 300 vials of HGH.”
Ihlenfeld said customs agents identified the package as suspicious “and the Mon Valley Drug & Violent Crime Task Force took it from there.”
Authorities stumbled onto the scheme in 2009, when three of the individuals indicted were students at West Virginia University, and the other two were affiliated with Club 24.
“It was a five-person operation, but they were distributing HGH across the country,” he said. “It's hard to (quantify), but they were obtaining HGH in bulk from China, then processing it in Morgantown, repackaging it and sending it out to states across the country.”
He said some of the drugs were distributed in Morgantown, though most were shipped to other destinations.
“There was quite a bit of thought put into it,” he said. “There's chemistry involved in it, the substances they were obtaining from China had to be cooked and turned into steroids. Once that was completed, it had to be repackaged and sold.”
He said one of the alleged conspirators was “somewhat of a marketing person, who would identify potential customers through the Internet.”
“As with anything of interest, there are message boards, blogs and websites,” he said. “It's the same for weightlifting and bodybuilding, there are message boards for that area. ... One of the individuals was (allegedly) able to identify individuals across the country who were interested in buying steroids because they were weightlifters, body builders or both.”
Ihlenfeld said the group was processing the HGH and steroids at their homes in Morgantown.
“If you have HGH and the glassware you need, you can produce steroids in your apartment, which at least one of the individuals did,” he said.
The government is seeking a $50,000 forfeiture, representing cash and other items seized during the raid.
“We may have stopped it soon after it started,” he said.
