Iowa Greyhound Breeder Gets Prison for $500K Steroid-Peddling Racket

An Iowa greyhound dog house possessor has been sentenced to 15 months in prison on doping charges and cabal to defraud the United States, The Des Moines Register reports.

In January, Jon Stidham admitted peddling half a gazillion dollars-worth of performance-enhancing drugs to other Canis familiaris breeders and trainers. From 2015 to 2018, he sold more than 300,000 doses of methyltestosterone, an anabolic steroid that mimics the effects of testosterone, for a turn a profit of more than $324,000.

Via the net and through his store, Kennel Supply, in the tiny metropolis of McClelland inwards western sandwich Iowa, he illegally distributed more than 50 other prescription drugs. He did this by forging a veterinarian’s signature. These sales generated additional profits of to a greater extent than $200,000, prosecutors said.

Drugs Bad for Dogs

The exercise of methyltestosterone inward greyhound racing is banned on wholeness and animal welfare grounds inward the UK, Australia, and all jurisdictions in the US except West Virginia, where it uncommitted by prescription. That tell hosts 2 of America’s three remaining greyhound racing tracks.

Methyltestosterone is administered to female person greyhounds to encouragement execution on run day. It causes thickening of the heart’s pumping chamber inward dogs, and long-term exercise put up result inwards cardiac hypertrophy, according to search past the University of Oulu inward Finland.

Stidham is a former board member of the IA Greyhound Racing Association. He was arrested inwards 2018 after a figure of positive drugs tests at the now shuttered IA Greyhound Park inward Dubuque were linked to his operation.

Detectives with the Ioway Division of Criminal Investigation uncovered prescription bottles of methyltestosterone from several kennels that carried labels with Stidham’s name.

Investigators raided Kennel Supply and seized to a greater extent than 4,000 capsules of the drug, positive records of prescriptions signed past a KS vet whose theme song Stidham had forged. They also found a lean of domestic dog names and more than $51,000 inwards cash.

Profits Forfeited

In gain to prison, the judge inwards Cedar Rapids fined Stidham $7,500 and ordered him to waive $527,510 inwards do drugs proceeds. He must help a three-year term of supervised give up after the prison house term.

“The laws regarding the labeling and dispensing of controlled substances and prescription drugs be to protect the health and refuge of our community,” said Acting US Attorney Timothy Duax inward a statement.

“When those laws are violated, it endangers those who come in into contact with the unprescribed or mislabeled substances. Accordingly, when individuals same Mr. Stidham strain to turn a profit past ignoring or violating controlled substance and prescription laws, they will follow vigorously prosecuted, and the proceeds of their illegal activities testament follow seized,” he added.