PATCHOGUE -- The names of R&B music star Mary J. Blige, along with rap artists 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and award-winning author and producer Tyler Perry, have emerged in an Albany-based investigation of steroids trafficking that has already rocked the professional sports world, according to confidential sources.
Information has surfaced recently showing those stars are among tens of thousands of people who may have used or received prescribed shipments of steroids and injectable human growth hormone in recent years. Law enforcement officials have said they have no evidence in their sprawling multistate probe that customers, including Blige or other entertainers, violated any laws. Instead, they are targeting anti-aging clinics, doctors and pharmacists who prescribed the drugs.
Still, medical experts say that use of steroids and human growth hormone -- an estimated $10 billion-a-year operation worldwide -- reaching into the entertainment industry illustrates how pervasive steroids use in the United States has become. It is not unique to athletics, where performance-enhancing drug use has marred many sports. For many celebrities, the lure of hormonal drugs is their supposed, unproven anti-aging effects.
While Congress is preparing to focus on baseball players alleged to have taken the drugs, medical experts are warning that steroids and human growth hormone are being illegally prescribed nationwide at an alarming rate under the misconception they will aid healing, enhance looks, strength and speed, or slow aging.
Records shared with the Times Union and information from several cooperating witnesses on Long Island indicate Blige and other stars were shipped prescribed human growth hormone or steroids -- sometimes under fictitious names -- at hotels, production studios, private residences, an upscale Manhattan fitness club and through the Long Island office of Michael Diamond, a chiropractor affiliated with the celebrities, sources said.
Diamond, who has not been identified as a target in the case or accused of breaking any laws, helps run an anti-aging program at Clay Gym in Manhattan, according to the company's Web site.
The Albany investigation became a nationwide spectacle last February when authorities raided a Palm Beach County wellness center and the offices of Signature Compounding Pharmacy in downtown Orlando. The wellness center's owners and the pharmacy's operators are awaiting trial in Albany on charges related to the sale of millions of dollars worth of prescription drugs, mostly steroids, through a suspected criminal enterprise involving allegedly corrupt physicians and a series of anti-aging "clinics" that advertised predominantly through the Internet.
In the past year the case has netted 10 guilty pleas, including felony convictions of three physicians and several operators of anti-aging clinics in Texas, Florida and New York.
Along the way it has exposed allegations of steroid use by Major League Baseball players, pro wrestlers, NFL figures, police officers, prison guards, top-ranked body builders, people with ties to high school and college wrestling programs, and now, celebrities.
SOURCE: THE TIMES UNION
Information has surfaced recently showing those stars are among tens of thousands of people who may have used or received prescribed shipments of steroids and injectable human growth hormone in recent years. Law enforcement officials have said they have no evidence in their sprawling multistate probe that customers, including Blige or other entertainers, violated any laws. Instead, they are targeting anti-aging clinics, doctors and pharmacists who prescribed the drugs.
Still, medical experts say that use of steroids and human growth hormone -- an estimated $10 billion-a-year operation worldwide -- reaching into the entertainment industry illustrates how pervasive steroids use in the United States has become. It is not unique to athletics, where performance-enhancing drug use has marred many sports. For many celebrities, the lure of hormonal drugs is their supposed, unproven anti-aging effects.
While Congress is preparing to focus on baseball players alleged to have taken the drugs, medical experts are warning that steroids and human growth hormone are being illegally prescribed nationwide at an alarming rate under the misconception they will aid healing, enhance looks, strength and speed, or slow aging.
Records shared with the Times Union and information from several cooperating witnesses on Long Island indicate Blige and other stars were shipped prescribed human growth hormone or steroids -- sometimes under fictitious names -- at hotels, production studios, private residences, an upscale Manhattan fitness club and through the Long Island office of Michael Diamond, a chiropractor affiliated with the celebrities, sources said.
Diamond, who has not been identified as a target in the case or accused of breaking any laws, helps run an anti-aging program at Clay Gym in Manhattan, according to the company's Web site.
The Albany investigation became a nationwide spectacle last February when authorities raided a Palm Beach County wellness center and the offices of Signature Compounding Pharmacy in downtown Orlando. The wellness center's owners and the pharmacy's operators are awaiting trial in Albany on charges related to the sale of millions of dollars worth of prescription drugs, mostly steroids, through a suspected criminal enterprise involving allegedly corrupt physicians and a series of anti-aging "clinics" that advertised predominantly through the Internet.
In the past year the case has netted 10 guilty pleas, including felony convictions of three physicians and several operators of anti-aging clinics in Texas, Florida and New York.
Along the way it has exposed allegations of steroid use by Major League Baseball players, pro wrestlers, NFL figures, police officers, prison guards, top-ranked body builders, people with ties to high school and college wrestling programs, and now, celebrities.
SOURCE: THE TIMES UNION
