Man linked to Biogenesis gets prison sentence
A FEDERAL judge in Florida has sentenced Biogenesis figure Anthony Carbone to two years in prison for Carbone’s role in a drug distribution conspiracy separate from the one involving Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez and other pro ballplayers.
Carbone, the owner of a South Florida tanning salon, was arrested in July about six weeks after he sold an undercover officer a shopping bag containing 30 vials of steroids and 2,000 tablets of fake Xanax. In September he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to traffic in counterfeit drugs and distribution of controlled substances.
U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Marra ordered Carbone to surrender to the federal Bureau of Prisons before noon on Feb. 5. He must also undergo a 500-hour drug treatment program.
The Long Island native’s link to Biogenesis was through his friend Porter Fischer, a former employee of Anthony Bosch’s anti-aging clinic, a now-shuttered source of performance-enhancing drugs. Fischer’s decision to steal a trove of documents implicating Bosch’s clients set off one of the biggest doping scandals in baseball history.
Fischer had the records with him on March 24, 2013, when he stopped by Carbone’s tanning salon to try out a new spray-on product. When he came out of the salon, he told police his car had been burglarized and the records were gone. Later, Gary Jones, another associate of Fischer and Carbone, sold documents to a Major League Baseball investigator and also to Rodriguez.
The suspicious circumstances are believed to have led DEA agents to begin surveillance of Carbone, Jones and another man named Frank Fiore. The feds soon uncovered a conspiracy to distribute drugs that centered around a Boca Raton nightclub Fiore was trying to get off the ground, the Havana Nights Cigar Bar and Lounge.
Jones and Fiore have also pleaded guilty to felony charges (Jones has confessed to selling a Romanian copy of an AK-47 to an undercover officer).
Carbone’s attorney Jeffrey Weiner submitted letters to the court last month from more than a dozen of Carbone’s friends and relatives seeking leniency for the Florida businessman.
Rosanne Carbone, his mother, told Marra that her son was deeply affected by the death of his father in a fishing accident, but he pulled himself together and worked as a special-education teacher after graduating from college. A friend, Matthew Cousineau, told the judge that Carbone gave him emotional support and a full-time job after he became a quadriplegic 11 years ago. Carbone’s fiancée, Nicole Edwards, said he is a dedicated father to their infant daughter.