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Police Bust 'Steroid Guru' In Canton
(CBS4)
Feb 21, 2006
CANTON - A Canton man, known as the 'Steroid Guru', will be arraigned Tuesday on drug and weapons charges.
Federal and local investigators arrested 37-year-old Bruce Kneller, of 735 Randolph Street, and seized more than 100,000 suspected steroid pills, ten guns and other materials.
Kneller will be charged in Stoughton District Court with possession with intent to distribute steroids, ten counts of unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and violating a Drug Free School Zone.
Kneller pleaded not guilty in Stoughton District Court Tuesday morning. Kneller is expected to make bail.
Prosecutors say Kneller's writings on steroids and other performance-enhancing supplements are widely available online.
The investigation was a joint venture by the U.S. Postal Inspectors, Massachusetts state police, the FDA and the Canton police department.
Investigators allege Kneller was making the pills himself and then distributing them.
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Arrest is called first in Web steroids ring
DA says drugs sold to bodybuilders
By Maria Cramer and Kathleen Burge
The Boston Globe
February 22, 2006
CANTON -- In the kitchen of his nondescript Canton apartment, Bruce Kneller packaged tens of thousands of illegal steroid pills he then shipped to Internet customers around the country, Norfolk County prosecutors said yesterday.
Federal and local authorities say they seized 100,000 suspected steroid tablets and 10 firearms from Kneller's home after his arrest on Friday -- the first raid in a two-year investigation into what authorities say is a nationwide steroid manufacturing and distributing ring that advertised discreetly on the Internet.
Yesterday, Kneller, 37, stood quietly in a Stoughton District courtroom in a suit and black overcoat as a plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf to charges including drug possession with intent to distribute and 10 counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.
Kneller, described by authorities as a former registered nurse and a self-employed import-export businessman, is accused of distributing the drugs to consumers who ordered them via e-mail and sent cash payments wrapped in aluminum foil to addresses in California. Authorities said the ring has made hundreds of thousands of dollars by marketing the drugs in gyms and on legitimate websites for bodybuilders.
To build their case, federal authorities said, they ordered illegal steroids over the Internet from e-mail addresses linked to Kneller. Authorities said they are continuing to investigate.
Officials said they do not know of any well-known athletes among customers. Two customers who were listed in court documents declined to talk about Kneller or his company.
''We do think there is a tremendous public safety issue attached to this," Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating said yesterday. ''This case will provide, I think, a very rare opportunity to see just how these kinds of illegal Internet steroid distribution businesses work."
Illegal steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs have made international headlines in big-time sports with baseball stars, including slugger Mark McGwire, testifying before Congress last year. Professional sports leagues have since instituted stricter drug testing policies. The investigation that led to Kneller's arrest also involves US postal inspectors, the federal Food and Drug Administration, and the Canton police.
Kneller's lawyer denied the allegations, calling his client a family man with solid roots in the Canton area. ''He's born and raised here," said lawyer Edward Sharkansky. ''He's got family here. This is his home."
Kneller's parents and his wife sat in the courtroom yesterday during the arraignment. They declined to speak to reporters afterward. In the basement of the courthouse, near the detention room, Kneller's mother comforted her daughter-in-law, her head against hers, one arm draped around her shoulder.
Authorities said Kneller had not registered the weapons in Massachusetts. Keating said he does not believe the guns are connected to the alleged drug operation. Kneller is also charged with unlawful possession of ammunition, and drug possession near a school.
Asked why thousands of suspected steroid pills were found in his client's home, Sharkansky said the answer would be fleshed out during trial. ''I don't have an explanation," he said.
Kneller is accused of working for a drug operation that advertised itself as Red Star Laboratories, which customers could find by searching on the Internet.
Customers were directed to an e-mail address that offered them price lists and products, typically $75 for a bottle of pills. To order, they used a second address. They were instructed to send money to one of six addresses in the San Diego area.
Prosecutors said Kneller received steroid pills, including some growth hormones designed for farm animals, from as far away as China and possibly as close as New Jersey. He then repackaged the pills that included Anadrol, Polysteron, and Masteron; wrapped them in labels that advertised them as Red Star Laboratories products; and sent them to customers by mail, prosecutors said. They said it is possible that Kneller mixed compounds to make some of the steroid pills.
Kneller, who was sometimes described as a chemist in online publications, has been a frequent, opinionated contributor to bodybuilding websites, including Testosterone Nation and MuscleMag International, often discussing in technical detail the pros and cons of various steroids and diet supplements. He wrote colorfully, sometimes with abundant expletives, describing his passion for Harley-Davidson motorcycles, high-performance cars, bull mastiffs, and sex.
But at Blue Hills Village, the quiet apartment complex on Randolph Street in Canton where Kneller lives, neighbors said he was a friendly, polite man who never bothered anyone and lived peacefully with his wife. Several were shocked to learn of the allegations against Kneller.
''My jaw just kind of dropped," said Lisa Miller, 34, who lives below Kneller's second floor apartment. ''It's scary. . . . I don't think it's really hit me yet."
Kneller, who is not a bodybuilder but wrote once about his struggle to lose 25 pounds quickly, often used the pen name ''Brock Strasser" in online magazines. Those who know him from the world of bodybuilding supplements describe him as an intelligent writer who liked to provoke controversy.
In a 1998 column for Testosterone Nation, the credit line described him as holding a degree in nursing and working at a biopharmaceutical company in Cambridge. The article said he had researched diet supplements for more than 10 years and worked in drug development for more than four years.
Stephen Schmitz of Bedford met Kneller years ago when both worked at a biotech company. Yesterday, he said he was surprised to hear about the charges. ''I don't believe that the charges are true," he said. ''Bruce is a very bright guy."
In October, the Washington Post paid a researcher to test diet supplements, including two made by Applied Lifescience Research Industries Inc., a Las Vegas company linked to another supplement company, Gaspari Nutrition in Neptune, N.J., for which Kneller was a consultant. After the Post reported that the researcher found steroids in the ALRI supplements, Kneller and an ALRI official responded in an open letter to the Post.
''None of the compounds we have developed and currently market are in current violation of any controlled substance act at either the federal or state level," they wrote.
The company, however, stopped making the supplements.
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‘Guru’ boasted on ’Net of Chinese connection
Laura Crimaldi
Boston Herald
February 22, 2006
E-mail article View text version View most popular Just four months before his arrest on charges he was running a steroid distribution center that reached bodybuilders nationwide, the man prosecutors labeled the “steroid guru” boasted he traveled to China to handpick supplements.
“Last year I was in China more than I was in the United States,” said Bruce Kneller during an Oct. 14, 2005, interview broadcast live on bodybuilding.com.
In the interview, Kneller talks about how he travels to China with his wife, a Chinese national, to select his products.
A registered nurse in Massachusetts from 1997 to 2000, Kneller was billed as a chemist during the broadcast.
“What we are ordering and designing is what they are actually getting . . . The quality of the manufacturing plant is akin to something you’d find in the United States. You’d be surprised. In some of these Third World countries how dirty and unclean. It’s not what you really would expect from a plant that’s manufacturing pharmaceutical ingredients,” Kneller said.
Kneller was interviewed alongside Rich Gaspari of Gaspari Nutrition. A label for Oxavar, a pro-anabolic agent sold by New Jersey-based Gaspari Nutrition, was among the items seized by investigators searching Kneller’s Canton apartment.
Aside from working as a staff columnist for Muscular Development Magazine, Kneller also wrote for Muscle Media and Testosterone Magazine. His family declined comment yesterday at Stoughton District Court.
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Bust reveals steroid lab
By Laura Crimaldi
The Boston Herald
February 22, 2006
A bodybuilding guru who allegedly transformed his Canton apartment into what officials called the nation’s “largest underground steroid lab” was arraigned yesterday as a part of an ongoing probe into the Internet’s rampant steroid black market.
Bruce W. Kneller, 37, a former nurse and staff columnist for Muscular Development Magazine, is accused of manufacturing and processing thousands of shipments of anabolic steroids made from materials from as far away as China for customers from coast to coast, said Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating.
Operating as Red Star Laboratories, Kneller tapped into an e-mail network of steroid-hungry bodybuilders who would shell out about $75 a bottle for pills of Winstrol, Dianabol, Equipoise, Anadrol and the erectile-dysfunction medicine Cialis, prosecutors said. The outfit even bragged in advertising that none of the 15,000 shipments handled by the operation had been intercepted in seven years, prosecutors said.
“This whole veneer of respectability — calling themselves a lab, marketing themselves to bodybuilders and using the Internet — that poses the greatest danger,” said Keating. He said some of the materials seized were intended for heifers.
A search of Kneller’s apartment allegedly uncovered more than 1,600 bottles of suspected steroid pills and Cialis — many of which were packaged in unmarked containers, 10 firearms including a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver and Browning 12-gauge shotgun and Glock 9 mm semiautomatic handgun, Red Star Laboratory product labels, Chinese and U.S. currency, three Chinese swords and brass knuckles.
Customers would e-mail Kneller at tweeked@keptprivate.com for a price list and then be put in contact with a second man in California for payment instructions. Payments were required to be made in cash wrapped in aluminum foil. Kneller shipped the items from a Randolph post office under fake return addresses, prosecutors said.
U.S. Postal Inspector Stephen Dowd said this is the first arrest in a steroid ring which has ties to 18 states, including Massachusetts.
Kneller was freed on $25,000 bail after his arraignment at Stoughton District Court. His defense attorney downplayed the charges.
“This is what this case is about — it’s about misdemeanor steroid charges and firearms paperwork that are not up to date,” said defense attorney Edward Sharkansky.
| I don't think it would be too unfair to call a duck a duck, especially if he's quacking. 2-3 years was his sentence, right? I think we have found the key government informant for the latest string of arrests. |
09-25-2007, 11:45 AM
(gosh i guess i dont remember the emoticons well today) 
