KALAMAZOO

— Local law enforcement agencies pressured a steroids dealer to build cases against two police officers and a Paw Paw businessman suspected of buying the substances illegally, according to documents obtained by the Kalamazoo Gazette.

Meanwhile, the dealer was not charged and local investigators say the case against him has been closed.

The dealer, a 38-year-old Vicksburg man who according to a tipster ran a lucrative steroids-distribution enterprise, supplied a client base that is alleged to have included “several police officers.” The clients included Sgt. Fred Milton Jr., an 11-year Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety veteran, police documents obtained by the Gazette under the Freedom of Information Act show.

Milton resigned under pressure in May and could face a criminal charge; a Paw Paw gym owner and a former Paw Paw police officer with connections to the supplier have both been charged with felonies.

As for the supplier, “the case is closed on our end and we are not pursuing any other charges,” Public Safety Assistant Chief Brian Uridge said. “... We’re not going to comment any more on the case.”

Federal authorities are mum on whether the supplier may face federal charges. “We do not talk about ongoing investigations, including whether we have one,” said Kaye Hooker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Grand Rapids.

Tip was beginning

The investigation that led to the steroids supplier and the eventual end of Milton’s career with Public Safety began to take shape last November when the Kalamazoo Valley Enforcement Team, Public Safety’s drug-interdiction unit, got a tip through Silent Observer.

The steroids supplier, the caller said, had been dealing in Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties “for years,” netting thousand of dollars per month and $15,000 alone from buyers at a “recent Mr. Kalamazoo bodybuilding show.”

The dealer, the tipster said, was selling steroids to “(two) officers from KDPS ... (and) selling steroids to a police officer in Paw Paw.”

Police launched an investigation and on March 8, KVET officers and an agent with the U.S. Mail Inspection Service detained the suspect outside of a Portage post office, where he had stopped to pick up a package of 50 vials of human growth hormone powder shipped from Hong Kong, according to a search warrant affidavit. The suspect “admitted to being a large-scale distributor of steroids and HGH (human growth hormone),” KVET Sgt. David Boysen wrote in a memo. “He said that he has a source of supply in China that he has been dealing with for the past year and a half.”

A search of his home and a storage unit in Vicksburg turned up additional steroids, HGH, lab equipment, pharmaceuticals shipped from overseas, a loaded assault rifle, drug tabulations, records and more than $6,000, according to documents.

Police took the supplier to a hotel to question him, including “about cops that were involved as well as his other main distributors,” Boysen wrote.

The supplier told police he was willing to cooperate but “wanted consideration on his criminal charges.” Boysen told him “we would do everything we could for him if he was honest and fully cooperative with us,” his memo said.

“I told him that we take it very seriously when he tells us police officers may be involved,” Boysen wrote. “He responded by saying, ‘You guys had to know.’ I told him that knowing and proving are two different things.”

Delivered ‘on a silver platter’

The supplier initially denied dealing directly with any police officers, but later said he was selling “various steroid products” to a Paw Paw gym owner and that Robert Kusmack, a Paw Paw police officer, had tried to purchase steroids from him. He also said Kusmack “was supplying to other cops,” the memo said, but Kusmack was charged in May only with felony possession of the anabolic steroid Fluoxymesterone.

Documents show that the supplier also told KVET investigators that he knew a KDPS officer “named Fred.” He said he communicated with Fred on Facebook but denied selling him steroids.

After the March 8 interview, the supplier called another KVET officer and told him “he could deliver Fred ‘on a silver platter,’” documents show. KVET handed over their probe of the KDPS sergeant to the West Michigan Enforcement Team, a Michigan State Police drug unit, and plans for the supplier to set up an exchange with Milton began the next day.

Members of the two drug units and a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent met with the supplier that day and, according to Boysen’s memo, the supplier asked police for “a written guarantee of immunity.” Boysen says in the memo that investigators told the supplier they had obtained a letter from the Kalamazoo County Prosecutor’s Office indicating that his cooperation and truthful testimony would be considered “in the ultimate resolution of any criminal charges.”

The supplier went on to tell investigators he had “sold steroids in the past to Fred Milton,” and had text messages from February in which the two discussed Milton purchasing testosterone. He told police that Milton had recently paid him $300 for 25 bottles of HGH and that Milton was expecting the package “any day.” As proof, he showed police text messages he said he and Milton exchanged March 8.

On March 11, the supplier, his vehicle equipped by police with recording devices, met Milton in a parking lot on South Westnedge Avenue.

Just before that, according to police records, the supplier typed the following text message to an unknown number: “U know this sucks I’m about to ruin a guy’s career on a handshake.”

A transcript says that at their parking lot meeting, the supplier and Milton discussed Milton’s use of testosterone, HGH and Trenbolene, an anabolic steroid. At one point, they talked about other police officers who may use steroids, including Kusmack and two officers they referred to only by first names.

After Milton left, WEMET investigators stopped him in his pickup truck and seized 25 bottles of HGH, needles and syringes, documents show.

Milton resigns

After his arrest, Milton was interviewed by a DEA agent and WEMET officer. He initially told them he had “only prescription items in his possession” and that he had a prescription for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, which he had been taking for at least a year.

State Police Detective Sgt. Michael Harris wrote in a report that Milton later admitted, however, that he had ordered HGH from the Vicksburg supplier and paid $300 for a three-month supply “to save money on his insurance co-pay.” Milton told police he normally paid $130 to $140 for a one-month supply of HCG.

He also told investigators he had previously taken trenbolene acetate, an anabolic steroid, but discontinued its use because “it made him feel weird and out of breath.”

Public Safety placed MIlton on administrative leave with pay March 11 and he resigned May 4.

After his resignation, Milton and his attorney, Michael D. Hills, of Kalamazoo, said that Milton’s purchase of the HGH was done out of medical necessity and that he was unable to afford the high cost of several prescriptions to treat a hormone imbalance. They also said Milton had been prescribed steroids and HGH injections to combat high estrogen levels and low levels of testosterone and that the medications were taken in addition to prescriptions for his thyroid, heart, cholesterol and blood sugar.

Despite having health-care coverage, Milton was paying as much as $1,200 for his prescriptions, Hills said. Milton told his superiors at Public Safety during their internal investigation that, besides the high cost of his prescriptions, he was struggling to pay multiple mortgages and a truck payment.

“My financial situation is absolutely horrible and I was in the process of trying to better that,” he said during an interview with Assistant Chief Lynn Wetmore, who headed the internal investigation of Milton. “I mean I was cutting corners, saving money any way I could.”

Wetmore concluded, however, that Milton’s health-care coverage would have allowed him to purchase a three-month supply of his HCG prescription for $45, compared to the $300 he paid to the supplier for 100 days worth. “This would contradict Milton’s statement that purchasing product from (the supplier) would save him money,” Wetmore wrote in the findings.

Wetmore also concluded in her report that Milton and the supplier were close and she questioned Milton’s assertions that he did not trust the supplier and “didn’t know him to have him over for dinner that they just worked out a couple of times together.”

In court

While Milton has not been charged in connection with the steroids probe, WEMET Detective Lt. Mike Anderson said police plan to submit their investigation of Milton for review to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Grand Rapids after they receive results of lab tests. “I don’t know if, or when, they’ll do anything with that,” he said.

Anderson said WEMET investigators probed accusations that other police officers besides Kusmack and Milton were using and obtaining steroids without a prescription but did not obtain evidence to confirm that. He also said that investigators looked at comments exchanged by Milton and the supplier about two other officers said to be steroid users — “but couldn’t substantiate anything.”

Meanwhile, Kusmack is scheduled to be in Van Buren County District Court Sept. 10 for a hearing on evidence against him in the steroids probe. WEMET investigators seized steroids from Kusmack, 33, in March and identified as his supplier Aaron Diprima, owner of the Strength Beyond gym in Paw Paw.

Kusmack faces up to two years in prison, if convicted.

Diprima, 33, pleaded guilty in June to possession of an analogue, a two-year felony. He was sentenced Aug. 23 under section 7411 of the Michigan Public Health Code to one year of probation, 60 hours of community service and ordered to pay court costs. As part of his plea agreement, Diprima also has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify truthfully against Kusmack. Under section 7411, the felony charge will be removed from Diprima’s record if he successfully completes probation.

Hills, Milton’s attorney, declined to comment for this report, saying that “at this time we’re considering our litigation options and it’s just not appropriate to comment at this particular time.”

The Gazette was unable to reach Milton’s alleged Vicksburg supplier for this report and is not naming him because he has not been charged with a crime.