So this is what’s behind fussy new drug regulations for cops. A Staten Island doctor has admitted to writing steroid prescriptions for policemen and bodybuilders hoping to beef up, and also to taking kick-backs from the Brooklyn pharmacy that filled them. Back in 2008 the owner of Lowen’s Pharmacy committed suicide after Feds discovered $8 million worth of anabolic steroids and growth hormones in his Brooklyn store. There’s another casualty in this story too: a heart transplant recipient who took the pills just a year after his surgery, and later died.
The doctor Richard Lucente said in court that he wrote the prescriptions for 19 cops and bodybuilders and sent them to Lowen’s. Regarding the weak-hearted bodybuilder, Lucente was charged with reckless endangerment (though instead he accepted a plea bargain for conspiracy). The Advance says Lucente “treated” Jospeph Baglio for an alleged testosterone deficiency from, 2005 to 2007, charging $500 per month for growth hormones and steroid prescriptions that may have contributed to his death in 2007.
Lucente—who was given five years’ probation, 200 hours of community service and stripped of his medical license—still claims innocence, and told reporters outside the courthouse he took the plea bargain for the sake of his young song. "I knew in my heart of hearts I'm innocent," said the director of the New York Anti-Aging and Wellness Center, according to the News. But the prosecutor had a different take: “He is a convicted felon. He is not writing prescriptions," affirmed lawyer Michael Spankos.
