The telephone rang and Tommy picked it up. It was Anthony, an old friend and former training partner that worked out in Tommy's basement gym a year or two before.

"Yo, Tommy, you still got any juice?"

"Juice? No, man." Tommy hadn't used steroids in over a year, since he was twenty-three. He and Anthony had once done a steroid cycle together, but Tommy was hardly working out at all lately. He was putting in long hours laying floors, and things with his girlfriend were getting serious.

"Can't you get some? I want to get huge! Come on, bro."

Tommy thought a moment. He remembered he had recently seen one bottle of testosterone cypionate in his closet. It was the last one he had from a while back. It was unopened, but he was going to just throw it out. Hey, if Anthony could use it, why not? Anthony was a good kid. "Yeah, I got something for you."

Read on...

"How much you want for it?" Anthony asked. "I need it right away."

Tommy paused. It hadn't even crossed his mind. Maybe he could recoup what he paid for it.

"Two hundred."

"That's too much, bro. How's a hundred and eighty?"

"Okay." Whatever. Tommy arranged to meet Anthony and dug the bottle out of his closet.

They met the next night in a parking lot they used to hang out in. To Tommy's surprise, Anthony showed up with a friend Tommy didn't know. Anthony introduced "Joey," and said that he was cool. He gave Tommy the money and Tommy handed him the bottle. Then Joey said he wanted steroids too.

"No," Tommy said, "this was just for Anthony. I don't do this."

"Yeah, but we could make some big bucks," Joey pressed. "I got guys that go crazy for this shit."

"This isn't my thing, man," Tommy answered. "This is a one shot deal, just for Anthony. I don't sell this stuff."

Joey persisted, saying how much money they could all make. It went on for a while, but Tommy was adamant. He wasn't a dealer. He wasn't even a juicer anymore. His girlfriend would kill him if she knew he had even helped Anthony out like this.

Finally, Joey gave up, and he and Anthony left. Tommy started his car. Suddenly he was blinded. Light was everywhere, with shadows moving through it. His car door opened and somebody grabbed him and threw him on the ground. Face down; his arms were pulled behind his back. Handcuffs were put on his wrists and he was dragged to his feet, thrown on the hood of his car. Everything was spinning. Lights were flashing and people were talking on radios. Somebody said he was under arrest. He was walked toward a police patrol car. Police officers were all around him; some in uniforms, others in plainclothes. What happened? Where did all these cops come from? How did they know? And where were Anthony and Joey? A sick feeling came over him as he realized ... He'd been set up by his friend for one bottle of juice...

Robby was 34 years old, married with two children, and gainfully employed as a machinery assembler. He ordered some D-bol and Winny from an online source. He had gotten one Customs seizure notice about two weeks earlier. For whatever reason, he'd signed it and mailed it back. Regardless, his address was flagged.

Three packages from Thailand were intercepted at the San Francisco FMU/Daly City Airmail facility. Package one had 200 tablets total of D-bol and Winny; package two had 199 D-bol tabs; and package three had 209 Winny tabs. All were concealed in stacks of hollowed-out white paper.

Customs got the local police on board and wired a package for delivery with an AT-4 transmitter (an electronic signaling device used to confirm that a target has opened his package). Pre-raid surveillance was set up, the delivery was made and Robby signed for the package.

When Robby opened the package, he saw a little black device. Panicking, he took out the batteries and ran out to his car. He was stopped by the raid team, who took him back to the house and searched it -- seizing everything connected with bodybuilding including an Arnold Schwarzenegger book.

They found 19 Sustanon preloads in his garbage. In custody, Robby waived his rights, admitted four previous Internet juice orders, and was even pressured into saying that 600 tablets is more than one person could use. [The deputy prosecuting attorney refused to plea bargain the case below a felony level...]

It was a similar shipment from Thailand for 10 envelopes of 100 tabs each that caused Customs to alert the local authorities. And thus, a case that really should have had federal jurisdiction was handed over to a bunch of inexperienced redneck local cops. Obviously, the Feds couldn't be bothered with such a spindly little case, but to the county cops of this little suburban community just outside Baltimore, it was like Pablo Escobar had just hit town. They proceeded to obtain a warrant and conduct a search of Mike's home and cars, despite the fact that the destination of the order was a P.O. box and no controlled delivery was ever conducted. There really was no link between the drug intended to go to the P.O. Box, and Mike's home and cars, other than speculation that Mike was a big drug dealer. Well, big for Mike and Kim's sleepy little town.

...So, one day, Mike arrived home from the gym, opened the door and was accosted by three armed county cops. He was quickly handcuffed, read his rights and led to his kitchen to wait while more than a dozen other uniformed and plain-clothes cops searched his house and car. The cops had been there for hours, entering the home while Mike's three daughters, ages 11, 13 and 17, were home alone. Soon thereafter, Kim arrived. The ladies were made to sit on the couch for five hours and were not even permitted to use the rest room.

The cops concluded their search and made off with 1,000 D-bol, 1,000 A-bombs, 25 bottles of test, some Primo and nonscheduled items- IGF-1and insulin. They also took a bottle of Pamprin, the dog's heart worm medication, a blood pressure kit, all Mike's bodybuilding magazines, steroid books and an old Dan Duchaine price list from the '80s that Mike was keeping as a remembrance of the guru. They got Mike's computer, too. The search warrant expressly stated that no cash was to be seized from the home, yet, $3,660 cash, which could be verified as wedding gifts, was seized and lost to forfeiture.

While Mike hired local civil counsel to deal with the forfeiture issue, the illegal seizure of the wedding money was just the beginning of the bungling by law enforcement in this case. But, while most people who watch TV know police mishandling can be used to get a case tossed out or even sue a municipality, few realize that in the real world it's a stacked deck. Some non-malicious varieties of police or clerical screw-ups are deemed 'harmless error' by the courts and simply hurt the accused. Police mistakes can cut either way. I've seen hundreds of steroid cases with various legal infirmities, but Mike's case was an unprecedented 'comedy of errors.'

Both Mike and Kim were charged with "intent to distribute anabolic steroids," at that point in the case a misdemeanor, and they had to surrender themselves to the authorities. They were jailed for the day and eventually transferred to appear before the commissioner who released them on their own recognizance.

Charging Kim was absolutely ludicrous. She obviously wasn't a steroid user or involved with either the trafficking or the possession of such drugs. The county officer in charge of the case said that if this was repeated he would deny it, but Kim's arrest was only for leverage to insure a conviction of Mike in the case. If he pleaded guilty, Kim's charges would be dropped. Including Kim in Mike's case is just one of the dirty little tricks the cops can get away with. In Kim's case, a conviction would mean losing her mortician's license and putting her out of business, not to mention the extra legal fees for another lawyer.

A key issue in the case against Mike was whether the sheer quantities of anabolics involved were indicative of an 'intent to distribute.'

While the list of various pharmaceuticals and the amounts recovered from Mike's house were substantial indeed, they were not necessarily inconsistent with personal use for a heavy, hardcore user. Of course, the prosecutors were used to dealing with street drugs like cocaine and heroin, where only 20 or 30 individual product units might prove intent to sell. They were totally convinced from the outset that they had a high-level dealer. In fact, they believed the 1,000 tablets of methandienone alone that came to the P.O. box proved an intent to sell (a totally ludicrous position given that 1,000 was the typical minimum order from the overseas supplier). They were out for blood, absolutely convinced of their position.

Months went by, and finally it seemed they had worked out a deal for a plea agreement that Mike and Kim would accept in court, in lieu of going through the trial. This would typically be a deal in which the defendant would plead guilty to lesser charges in exchange for saving the government the expense and effort, and sometimes embarrassment, of putting their show on at trial.

At 4 pm the day before the trial date, however, it was revealed that the misdemeanor charges were going to be dropped and that new felony charges had been filed. The deal was off, which meant Mike and Kim would now have to go through the indignities of being arrested for a felony. This usually includes getting fingerprinted, strip searched and locked up for hours, if not days, in a filthy cell and then formally brought before a judge, magistrate, commissioner, etc., to be charged and hear their plea.

The police in Mike's case originally charged misdemeanor violations related to prescription drugs, not felony 'controlled dangerous substances' charges. Why? Because they were confused about what the substances were and about what their legal status was. To coin a phrase, many cops don't know an Anavar from an aspirin.

Mike and Kim were promised that their lawyers would be informed of their surrender date so they could surrender themselves by summonses directly to the court rather than go through the entire process of executing warrants and going to jail, etc., all over again. But that didn't happen. In a sad coincidence, the day the cops decided to execute Mike's warrant also happened to be the day Mike's mother passed away. Four hours after her death, Mike arrived home from the hospice and found a county cop waiting for him. Mike assumed he would be served with a summons to appear in court. However, it was not a summons, but a warrant for his arrest. Apparently a "clerical error" caused the foul up and Mike's warrant had not been changed to a summons as promised. He spent most of the day his mother died in jail waiting to get bailed out.

Kim, knowing she would likely be the victim of a similar "clerical error," surrendered herself to the county police department four days later after making arrangements with the police for swift processing and immediate transfer to the commissioner. That didn't happen either. Kim was made to wait for five hours in a filthy cell, strewn with human waste, where there was only a small patch of ground for her to stand where she felt least likely to contract hepatitis. She was finally transferred, in handcuffs and shackles, to the commissioner's office. In the process, she was led past crowded areas where she encountered many people she knew or with whom she had done business.

Ultimately, several trial dates were postponed because, after a full year, the detective in charge was still busy reviewing all 1,300 pages of e-mail from Mike's computer. The cops needed to provide some evidence that warranted the felony charge of distribution. One sentence, of the 1,300 pages, stating to a supplier that Mike needed "to satisfy some people over here" was exhibited as evidence that he was a steroid dealer.

Switching the blame of urgency to fictitious, impatient associates is a common tactic to coerce a slow moving supplier to begin to send a delayed order. Obviously, if Mike were a big Internet steroid dealer, there would be more than just this one partial sentence out of 1,300 pages of e-mail. Even so, the state insisted on pressing for the felony regardless of the lack of evidence. Their determination to convict was unexplainable, especially in a case of such a victimless crime. One day, Mike was in court with a man who sodomized and raped a 14-year-old; an armed bank robber who had robbed four banks in a year; and an armed robber involved in an assault. What did Mike do to be in such company? HARDCORE BODYBUILDING IN THE FIRST DEGREE!"

Mike's incredible but true story, along with its resolution and an update, is told in Legal Muscle - along with dozens of other true tales from the personal files of Rick Collins!