Anthony Galea, come on down!
The Toronto sports medicine guru, charged Thursday with five felonies related to his treatment of more than 20 pro athletes, can either come to the United States to voluntarily appear in court or else face extradition from his native Canada.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Campana, who oversaw a grand jury investigation into Galea's activities, told the Daily News Friday that it was "premature" to talk about what steps his office would take to bring Galea to federal court in Buffalo if Galea doesn't willingly appear (no arraignment date has yet been scheduled).
The 51-year-old Galea, who treated Tiger Woods and Alex Rodriguez, is accused of billing patients more than $500,000 for treatments he conducted in the U.S. during more than 70 trips he made across the border between 2007 and 2009. Galea made the trips despite not having a work visa or a medical license in the U.S., according to the 29-page indictment, and he injected at least some of his patients with human growth hormone and Actovegin, a calf-blood derivative not approved for use in the U.S.
Galea's attorney in Toronto, Brian Greenspan, was not available for comment.
The government's star witness is thought to be Galea's former assistant, Mary Anne Catalano, who pleaded guilty in the summer to lying to federal agents during a border stop on Sept. 14, 2009, when drugs and medical equipment were found in her car. Catalano has been cooperating with law enforcement officials investigating Galea on both sides of the border.
"We allege that their agreement was to tell inspectors they were attending medical conferences," says Campana, who oversaw the investigation that involved four federal agencies.
Toronto attorney Calvin Barry, who represents Catalano, said he expects that if Galea appears for his arraignment and pleads not guilty, Catalano's sentencing, which has already been postponed to Jan. 19 of next year, will be pushed back until after the conclusion of Galea's trial.
"She's in limbo," Barry said.
According to the indictment, Galea injected mixtures of substances including HGH into his patients' knees to repair cartilage - a practice that confounds medical experts, since HGH doesn't act locally but rather initiates a body-wide hormonal chain reaction that may or may not repair tissue.
The indictment also says Galea dispensed erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra and Cialis without writing prescriptions, sometimes instructing Catalano to take the drugs "out of their original packages and to put them in nondescript pill bottles so as to make detection of them less likely during border inspections when entering the United States."
Besides Woods and A-Rod, Galea is known to have treated a wide array of Olympic and professional athletes. None of them is named in the indictment, but the document says Galea conducted his treatments in Hawaii, Cleveland, New York City, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Washington, Boston, Atlanta, San Diego, San Francisco, Denver and Phoenix.
The indictment says Galea generally charged $1,500 or $3,500 for his "consultations," and instructed Catalano to be cryptic in how she described the visits on invoices.
Barry pointed out that the indictment against Galea was more evolved than a criminal complaint the feds filed in May, formally announcing that there was an ongoing investigation into Galea. Barry suggested the complaint had given the government a head start on the potentially tricky process of getting Galea - who is still practicing in Toronto - to the U.S. to face charges.
"Extradition can be a two- or three-year process, and I bet they wanted to get a jump on it," Barry said. The complaint "was a way for them to say, 'This is serious, you will be expected to show up for court in Buffalo.' "
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