7 Charged in Orange County Steroids Case

The Orange County district attorney’s office filed criminal conspiracy charges Thursday against seven men allegedly involved in the illegal manufacture and distribution of anabolic steroids, body-building drugs thought to have extremely dangerous side effects.

The charges, filed in Westminster Municipal Court, resulted from an investigation begun in September when a Fullerton College football coach suffered an adverse reaction to steroids that he allegedly had obtained from Jeffrey A. Feliciano, 36. Authorities confiscated 188 vials of the drug at Feliciano’s Fountain Valley Research laboratory.

Crackdown Launched

Last week, the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration announced a nationwide crackdown on the $100-million-a-year black market in illegal steroids, believed to be widely used by amateur and professional athletes to build muscles and increase strength.

Three felony conspiracy counts each were filed Thursday against Feliciano, Michael Lee Pycior, 19, and James Guy Joseph, 20, all of Fountain Valley; physician Val Max Warhaft, 35, and Shayne Iler Ganz, 29, both of Irvine; Kevin Lawrence Stensby, 33, of Newport Beach, and Christopher Mark Mott, 29, of Anaheim.

Joseph played linebacker at Fountain Valley High School, where he built himself from a 98-pound freshman to a 195-pound senior, according to the school’s football coach. Joseph also played at Fullerton College in 1985.

The maximum penalty is three years in state prison and a $10,000 fine on each count.

Feliciano also is charged with a fourth count of possession of codeine, for which he was arrested Jan. 10 when authorities served search warrants at the Fountain Valley lab and confiscated 188 vials of steroids, valued at about $180 each. Also seized were materials used to manufacture steroids, said Capt. Donald Bankhead of the Fullerton Police Department.

None of the defendants could be reached for comment Thursday. But Feliciano’s attorney, J. Michael Hughes, said the charges amount to a “whole string of misdemeanors.” He said Feliciano will surrender to authorities next week, as he believes the other defendants will.

“They all had something to do with the operations, manufacturing and distribution” of steroids, said Bankhead, whose department headed the investigation. Also involved were the FBI, FDA and state Board of Medical Quality Assurance.

Feliciano used Warhaft’s federal drug certificate number to order drugs from out-of-state supply houses with the doctor’s knowledge, Bankhead said. At the lab, Feliciano converted the steroids into a liquid, injectable form, Bankhead said.

Attorney’s Statement

Warhaft’s attorney, Wolf Stern, said the doctor gave Feliciano permission to use the certificate number to “order some aprons and gloves and medical supplies, but apparently he went ahead and ordered something completely different.”

The orders may have been for items such as “syringes, but not drugs of any kind,” Stern said. If Feliciano ordered drugs using Warhaft’s name, he did so “totally without my client’s consent,” Stern said.

Stern declined to comment on the charges, saying that neither he nor Warhaft, who is out of town vacationing, had seen them. However, Warhaft will surrender to authorities next week, Stern said.

Feliciano, who had developed a reputation as a body-building guru, “wasn’t licensed to manufacture steroids,” Bankhead said. “He wasn’t licensed to do anything with steroids.”

Surrenders Arranged

In discussions with the suspects over the past five months, each agreed to surrender when charges were filed, Bankhead said.

The illegal manufacture and sale of steroids is only a misdemeanor, Bankhead said, “therefore we’ve charged them with conspiracy, which is a felony.”

“From what I’ve learned,” he said, “I think we are in dire need of some sections (of law) that would give us more control over this type of drug. Information I’ve read from medical journals . . . points out (that steroids) cause severe problems with liver and heart.”

Legislation that would require instruction in schools concerning the health risks of anabolic steroids has passed the Legislature and awaits Gov. George Deukmejian’s signature. A bill to toughen criminal penalties for the illegal manufacture and distribution of the drug is now before the Senate.

Anabolic steroids are synthetic derivatives of the male hormone testosterone and can be administered only by a doctor’s prescription. Illegal steroids have been used by athletes involved in power-lifting, weight-lifting, body-building, football and other strength-related sports.

Risks Cited

Among serious risks associated with long-term use are prostate cancer in men and liver cancer in men and women, according to FDA officials. Steroids also have been associated with heart disease, strokes, personality changes and reproductive problems, and the production in women of irreversible male characteristics, such as beards, baldness and deep voices.

“Some of the people we talked to did have adverse reactions,” Bankhead said. Among those questioned by police were Orange County college students, although Bankhead said their identities are being kept confidential in return for their cooperation.

Bankhead said the Fountain Valley laboratory supplied college and professional athletes on a retail basis and also filled out-of-state wholesale orders.

In court papers filed in January, authorities disclosed that their investigation began when an unidentified Fullerton College football coach suffered an adverse reaction to the drug, then gave a bottle of the drug to an informant, who took it to police.

The documents also said Feliciano characterized the drug he allegedly supplied as “rather exotic compared to domestic steroids” and said it came from East Germany.

False Labeling?

“He basically implied to the customers that it was from (East) Germany,” Bankhead said Thursday. “That was untrue. He had the labels printed in German and manufactured the steroids himself.”

“Steroids manufactured in East Germany have a reputation of being good steroids,” Bankhead said. “They get good results. It made the peddling . . . easier when people believed it came from East Germany.”

In March, Feliciano filed a claim against the City of Fullerton seeking $5 million in damages because “police damaged or destroyed the laboratory equipment and records” at his Fountain Valley home and laboratory. The City Council rejected the claim.

Warhaft also filed a claim for damages against the city, asserting that police destroyed his personal property when searching his Irvine home in connection with the search of Feliciano’s lab. That claim also was denied by the council.

John Martinez, deputy chief of the state Board of Medical Quality Assurance, said Thursday his agency will “initiate an investigation based on the filing” of charges.