Long-time Tarrytown Doctor Sentenced in Federal Steroids Case

Manuel Sanguily, 77, of Tarrytown, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Friday for his involvement with an online drug company that illegally dispensed steroids and growth hormones.

The charges stemmed from a February 2005 U.S. Food and Drug Administration raid of a Florida-based internet drug company called PowerMedica. The company sold anabolic steroids and human-growth hormones for body building, athletic enhancement and anti-aging purposes. Court records state that some of PowerMedica's clients included professional body-builders, police officers and firemen.

The company would then ship the steroids to customers with an invoice and a prescription form signed by a practising doctor. Sanguily was one of the doctors who participated in the scheme and admitted to filling out over 2,000 prescriptions for individuals he never met.

Sanguily became involved with PowerMedica in 2002 after he was approached by the company. Court records show that he admitted to signing drug orders purporting to be prescriptions for PowerMedica customers for a month in 2002, and from May 2004 to June 2005.

Records show Sanguily first testified about PowerMedica to a Grand Jury in September 2005. He admitted his involvement at the time. Sanguily was then arrested on May 18, 2010 for his involvement with PowerMedica. Before his arrest he had his medical license revoked.

Sanguily was an Olympic swimmer from Cuba who participated in the 1952 Helsinki Summer Games and the 1956 Melbourne Summer Games. He emigrated from Cuba and received his medical degree from Ohio State University before becoming a family practitioner in Tarrytown. He has also worked as a doctor for the school district and used to give physicals to those playing high school sports. He kept up his swimming pursuits, competing in national and international competitions, and inspired the Swim for Life event across the Hudson River.

He was brought on as a member of the Tarrytown YMCA board of directors in May of 2008. He is still listed as a board member on the organization's website, but has since resigned from the position.

Sanguily's lawyers submitted 19 letters written in support of the man by local residents and professional peers, who urged the court for leniency. His lawyers had hoped the judge would sentence Sanguily to probation, citing his outstanding service in the community, his "unblemished" record, and his "good moral character" despite making "an extremely poor set of choices in his involvement with PowerMedica."

However, Florida U.S. District Judge James I. Cohn argued that the sheer amount of prescriptions Sanguily wrote warranted a prison sentence.

Sanguily pled guilty to two counts, Conspiracy to Unlawfully Distribute Human Growth Hormone and Conspiracy to Unlawfully Distribute a Controlled Substance. He was sentenced to two concurrent 30 month prison terms and slapped with a $10,000 fine. The judge in the case recommended that Sanguily be incarcerated in the metropolitan New York area. His sentence will begin in March 2011.

The head of PowerMedica was also sentenced on Friday. Daniel Dailey will spending 46 months in prison.

According to reports from the Florida newspaper, Sun-Sentinel, Sanguily and Dailey are cooperating with federal investigators who are bringing charges against another pharmacy accused of distributing steroids, Signature Pharmacy. That case is being heard in Albany.