Bodybuilding.com CEO admits selling steroids
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The founder of an online fitness and bodybuilding company in Idaho pleaded guilty to illegally selling misbranded dietary supplements that contained steroids, according to federal prosecutors.
The plea agreement says that while DeLuca was CEO between 2007 and 2009, the Meridian company sold five products as dietary supplements that the Food and Drug Administration classified as drugs.
The supplements contained I Force Methadrol, Nutra Costal D-Stianozol, I Force Dymethazine, Rage RV5, and Genetic Edge Technologies (GET) SUS500 which are synthetic anabolic steroids or synthetic chemical clones of anabolic steroids.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had issued public health advisory, warning consumers to stop using products that contain these substances. The agency said in 2009 that it had received reports that men between 22 and 55 who had used such products have suffered serious liver injury, stroke, kidney failure and pulmonary embolism.
Many of the products were neither safe nor legal and by selling them, the company was “misleading, defrauding and endangering its customers,” according to the agent.
“DeLuca acknowledged at the plea hearing that as Bodybuilding.com’s CEO, he was responsible for Bodybuilding.com’s sales of misbranded products,” prosecutors said in a statement.
He will be sentenced on June 20.
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