Bodybuilding.com of Meridian, its CEO and a former president were sentenced Wednesday to pay criminal fines totaling $8.1 million on misdemeanor changes of selling misbranded products.
Bodybuilding.com, the world’s largest Internet supplement retailer, must pay $7 million for violations of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. CEO Ryan DeLuca, of Eagle, must pay $500,000. His brother, former Bodybuilding.com President Jeremy DeLuca, also of Eagle, will pay $600,000.
Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill placed the DeLucas on three years of probation and ordered them to make monthly payments during that time. The company must also implement a product-testing procedure.
In plea agreements, the defendants admitted that they sold five products misbranded as dietary supplements that contained synthetic anabolic steroids or synthetic chemical clones of anabolic steroids. Users take anabolic steroids or steroid-like substances to build muscle mass. The steroids simulate testosterone.
The sentencing ends a case that began when the Food and Drug Administration began a criminal investigation of Bodybuilding.com in 2007.
Liberty Media, the Colorado-based owner of the QVC home-shopping cable network, bought an 83 percent stake in Bodybuilding.com for more than $100 million in January 2008. Bodybuilding.com is now part of Liberty Interactive, which was split off from Liberty Media last September.
