From Deseret News archives:

N.Y. steroids investigators target Brooklyn pharmacy

HGH and anabolic steroids worth $7.5 million seized

Published: Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007 12:01 a.m. MDT
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Records indicate the building where the pharmacy is located is owned by Julius Nasso, the movie producer who was sentenced to a year in prison in 2004 for plotting to have associates of the Gambino crime family shake down the action-film star Steven Seagal over an alleged debt.

After the initial raid on Lowen's in May, Nasso's publicist, Richard Rubenstein, told the New York Daily News that the pharmacy was then co-owned by Nasso's son. On Wednesday, Hantman said Rubenstein had misspoken.

Rubenstein didn't return phone messages Wednesday.

In addition to the drugs, investigators also have seized customer lists from the Brooklyn pharmacy. Police officials are examining evidence that at least six of its officers might have received steroids for a non-medical use. Some of those officers have undergone drug tests and could be disciplined, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

According to court records, Lowen's rapid growth began in late 2004, after it struck up a business partnership with the proprietor of an alternative health clinic in Los Angeles.

In a lawsuit filed this year, Shirley Elzinger, a health practitioner in Beverly Hills, said she entered into a deal in which she agreed to help the store establish a new "compounding" division, which would manufacture hormone replacement medications from raw materials.

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Elzinger said she turned over equipment and a client list from her existing drug compounding pharmacy and in return was supposed to have received an ownership share in Lowen's.

Instead, she charged in the suit, the co-owners of the business cheated her out of at least $3 million in revenues.

Letendre's phone number on Staten Island is unlisted. Elzinger didn't respond to a phone message. Her attorney declined to comment.


Associated Press Writer Michael Virtanen in Albany contributed to this report.

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