Former doctor sentenced to 2 years in prison for writing illegal steroid prescriptions

Two doctors who doled out illegal steroids and human growth hormone prescriptions to perhaps thousands of people were sentenced Friday, one to two years in prison and the other to a year of home confinement.

Ana Maria Santi and Victor Mariani, both of New York, pleaded guilty in federal court earlier this year to charges they were paid by New Jersey businessman Daniel McGlone to write medically unnecessary prescriptions for customers they had never met or examined.

Federal prosecutors have disclosed few details of the people buying the drugs and won't comment on whether the clients included professional athletes.

Santi, 69, received the two-year sentence after admitting she wrote prescriptions for roughly 390 customers of McGlone's business, American Pharmaceutical Group. Prosecutors said she may have served thousands of clients overall.

She began writing the prescriptions in 2000 and used the name of another physician because her license to practice medicine was revoked a year earlier. The doctors, who earned $25 for each prescription, carried out the scheme through a stroke of the pen and a fax machine, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adi Goldstein said.

"She had no idea who she was writing prescriptions for — and she didn't care," Goldstein said.

Santi apologized in court, and her lawyer asked for leniency, describing his client as an "aging, infirm alcoholic." She also has pleaded guilty to a similar scheme in New York, and is awaiting sentencing on state charges there.

Santi, who was also sentenced to a year of home confinement, was ordered to repay Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island more than $19,200 that the health insurer had reimbursed customers for fraudulently prescribed drugs.

McGlone operated his business out of his apartment in North Brunswick, N.J., and marketed his company in publications geared to bodybuilders between April 2004 and August 2006, prosecutors say.

He advised customers which drugs they could take for bodybuilding, weight loss, anti-aging and other purposes for which the substances were not approved. Then he forwarded their requests to Mariani and Santi, who would write the prescriptions.

McGlone also has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

Signature Pharmacy, a Florida company whose client lists reportedly include many professional athletes, filled many of the prescriptions written by Santi and Mariani.

Mariani, 73, was spared jail time after Goldstein argued he had been "duped" into working for American Pharmaceutical Group by Santi, his friend. She said Santi had given him assurances that he could write the prescriptions without getting into trouble.