Drug Enforcement Administration steroid crackdown hits home
BY MICHAEL O' KEEFFE
New York Daily News
NEW YORK - Shortly after Don Hooton appeared on ``60 Minutes'' last year to talk about his son Taylor, who killed himself after suffering from depression linked to steroid use, the Plano, Texas, executive received a phone call from a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
The agent said he was saddened and outraged by the CBS report and vowed to do something about the drugs Hooton believed caused the high school baseball star's death.
``He told me people care and they're doing something about it,'' Hooton says. ``And damn if he wasn't true to his word.''
Last week, 20 months after that phone call, the agent invited Hooton to a DEA press conference to announce what federal authorities are calling the most significant illegal steroid bust in history. On Thursday, a federal grand jury in San Diego indicted 23 people and eight Mexican companies the DEA says sell $56 million worth of steroids to U.S. consumers annually.
DEA spokesman Misha Piastro says Operation Gear Grinder, the 21-month investigation that led to the indictments, is important because it knocks some of the nation's biggest sources of illegal steroids out of business. Seventy steroid dealers were convicted during Operation Equine, an investigation conducted by the FBI in the early 1990s. As the New York Daily News reported earlier this year, the names of baseball players, including Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco and others surfaced during that investigation, although the probe did not center on professional athletes.
Piastro says Operation Gear Grinder hasn't resulted in as many indictments or arrests, but it's important because the eight companies targeted are the source for most of the steroids seized in recent years by the DEA.
``That is taking it right to the source,'' Piastro says.
The eight companies used the Internet to reach consumers in the United States, and investigators say they have identified more than 2,000 customers in this country. The DEA doesn't have background information about the customers yet, Piastro says, but the agency expects a large percentage will turn out to be athletes or bodybuilders.
Operation Gear Grinder is also notable because large-scale steroid probes are rare. Steroid experts say that's because under federal sentencing guidelines, authorities have to make huge seizures before they can put steroid dealers away for significant prison terms.
``You need 50 units of steroids to get the same penalty you get for one unit of heroin or cocaine,'' says Gary Wadler, a World Anti-Doping Agency adviser who called for stiffer penalties for steroid offences at a U.S. Sentencing Commission hearing in September.
``Prosecutors have a budget, and they have to figure out how to utilize their resources in the best way. This is not a surprise. Compared to steroids, heroin and cocaine give them more bang for their buck.''
Rick Collins, a Long Island defense attorney who specializes in steroid cases, says the Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 - the federal law that made steroids illegal - was sporadically enforced for years after its passage. Increased scrutiny of international packages after 9/11 prompted authorities to ramp up enforcement, but Collins says most defendants are small-timers who purchase steroids for cosmetic reasons.
``Most of the users I've represented have been mature adults who are otherwise law-abiding people using steroids for cosmetic reasons,'' he says.
The eight companies indicted under Operation Gear Grinder operated under the guise of veterinary medicine suppliers, but most of the products listed on company Web sites were anabolic steroids sold in doses fit only for humans. Customers could place orders by phone or e-mail, pay by wire transfers and have steroids smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border or shipped directly to them.
Five men are already in custody, including Alberto Saltiel-Cohen, a Mexico City veterinarian who owns three companies that manufacture and distribute steroids. One of those companies, Quality Vet, produced the steroid Plano police found in Taylor Hooton's bedroom shortly after his suicide.
``It was rather satisfying,'' Hooton says, ``to watch this man be arraigned in federal court.''
