Galea Indicted For Drug Smuggling; Athletes To Be Treated As Witnesses

Dan Herbeck reports on the five felony counts for the doctor accused of "smuggling misbranded and unapproved drugs into the United States for the purpose of treating more than 20 professional athletes."

"There are no athletes charged with criminal activity. They are viewed as witnesses, rather than as defendants, in this case," Hochul said. "Any one of these athletes treated by Dr. Galea could be called as trial witnesses."

Woods and Rodriguez publicly acknowledged earlier this year that they had been contacted by federal agents conducting the Galea probe, and both said they cooperated. The investigation was conduced by agents from the Buffalo office of the FBI, U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs & Border Protection and the Food & Drug Administration.

Mahoney told The Buffalo News late Thursday that his client provided "homeopathic treatments" with a variety of drugs for athletes trying to recover from painful, career-threatening injuries.

"[Galea's] position is that he is using medicines for legitimate healing purposes," Mahoney said. "Just because a drug is unapproved by the government doesn't mean it's illegal."

Uh oh! That ought to make his defense interesting.

And it seems he really was a real life Dr. Leo Spaceman:

According to court papers, male potency-enhancement drugs were used in some of Galea's treatments. "It was further part of the conspiracy that [Galea] instructed Mary Anne Catalano to take Viagra and Cialis out of their original packages and to put them in nondescript pill bottles so as to make detection of them less likely during border inspections," the indictment says.