Indianapolis physician tied to Ponzi schemer
Dale Guyer, the doctor and founder of the anti- aging clinic alleged in an alJazeera report to have supplied Peyton Manning’s wife with human growth hormone, was a defendant in a lawsuit with jailed Ponzi schemer Timothy Durham, court records show.
Durham, a former businessman and attorney out of Indiana, is serving a 50- year prison sentence for using the Fair Finance Company in Ohio to bilk more than $ 200 million out of more than 5,000 investors. Durham was convicted in 2012 of securities and wire fraud, and conspiracy.
Guyer, an Indianapolis physician who treated Manning in 2011 after the quarterback’s four neck surgeries, was a “good friend” of Durham’s after meeting him in 2000, according to a 2014 federal complaint filed by Brian Bash, a court- appointed Chapter 7 trustee for Fair Finance.
According to the complaint, Durham lent Guyer “hundreds of thousands of dollars” for Guyer’s businesses, Advance Medical Center P. C. and Five Star Acquisitions LLC, from 2003 to 2008. The money, transferred directly from Durham and from businesses Durham controlled, was to help Guyer pay for medical equipment, fund a line of credit, pay off loans and for Guyer’s personal use.
Per the court documents, Guyer said “Durham would from time to time review the books of Advanced Medical in order to determine whether the company needed money, arrange for a ‘ cash infusion to the practice,’ tell Dale Guyer that Advanced Medical could pay the money back at a later date, ‘ and then money would appear.’ ”
Guyer paid off only a small portion of the debt despite “repeated” but “unsuccessful” efforts by Bash to collect payment. Asettlement agreement was reached last January that requires Guyer and his co- defendants to pay $ 35,000 over 18 months.
Guyer’s connection to HGH extends further. He was a named in a 2007 federal indictment for allegedly receiving Chinese HGH from a company in Colorado. And Bob Kravitz, a sports columnist for WTHR in Indianapolis who was formerly with The Indianapolis Star and now-defunct Rocky Mountain News, among other publications, said he was treated and prescribed HGH by Guyer.
Kravitz, as he first detailed in a column for WTHR, saw Guyer more than a decade ago for help with his debilitating fatigue. After undergoing extensive testing at Guyer’s clinic, Kravitz said he was prescribed HGH. Kravitz, while aware the drug was banned in sports, did not know HGH could be prescribed legally for only a limited number of serious conditions. HGH has been approved for treating Turner’s syndrome, Prader- Willi syndrome, growth issues in children, kidney insufficiency, muscle wasting associated with HIV/ AIDs and short bowel syndrome.
“At one point ( Guyer) said, ‘ I think HGH could help you,” Kravitz told The Denver Post. “I said, ‘ OK, at this point, if you tellme to stand on my head for 16 hours a day and drink yak juice— if that’s going to help me, I’ll do it.’ It never even crossed my mind that prescribing HGH might not be completely medically proper. I never thought, ‘ Oh, God, he’s prescribing me something illegal.’ That never even crossed my mind.”
Kravitz said that before hewas prescribed HGH by Guyer, he tried holistic treatment that Manning said he received at the clinic.
Kravitz recalled taking the hormone for “maybe a month,” but found it cost a lot more than it helped, especially because Guyer does not accept insurance.
Kravitz’s experience with HGH, coupled with his years of covering sports, helped to frame his reaction to the al- Jazeera report.
“I think when you’ve been in this business for a long time, over 30 years, you grow a little bit cynical when it comes to the whole PED issue and you just can’t dismiss it out of hand. You’ve got to say, well, let’s get some more information,” Kravitz said. “I doubt Peyton would do anything of that sort. I hope none of this is true. I really have a great deal of admiration for Peyton and all that he does on and off the field. I hope it’s not true, I don’t think it’s true, but I don’t want to close the door.”