North Alabama man gets 5 months for conspiracy to sell steroids to Monroeville doctor

MOBILE, Alabama — A federal judge today gave a break to a north Alabama satellite technician who admitted to illegally selling anabolic steroids to a Monroe County doctor.

Prosecutors acknowledged that Ashley Dewayne Rivers, of Morgan County, had tried to help law enforcement investigators pursue other cases since his indictment but that nothing had come to fruition. Chief U.S. District Judge William Steele decided to grant Rivers the 50 percent sentencing reduction he likely would have been eligible for had his cooperation efforts paid off.

Steele sentenced him to 5 months in prison, followed by 3 years’ probation. The defendant’s wife, who has been in a wheelchair since a traffic accident, quietly wept as the judge read the sentence.

“I don’t think it’s lost on you that this is a serious offense,” Steele said.

Rivers pleaded guilty in September to conspiracy to illegally dispense anabolic steroids. He admitted to selling the performance-enhancing drugs to Dr. Mark Koch, who faces his own sentencing hearing next month.

Defense attorney James Robinson asked Steele to impose “stringent” probation that would allow his client “no wiggle room” as an alternative to prison. He said Rivers and his wife care for their own 2 adopted children in addition to the 3 children of his disabled brother.

“Mr. Rivers knew when he got into this that there was a risk to this. He never for one minute was misguided into this,” Robinson said. “Ashley knows this is his fault.”

Robinson said Rivers and his wife sold T-shirts and raised some $40,000, which they gave away to victims of last year’s devastating tornadoes that ripped through northern Alabama.

“He’s a good man,” he said. “He’s a moral man. But he broke the law, and he’s admitted it.”

FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Young testified that the agency began investigating Koch after receiving a tip from the doctor’s estranged wife that he was involved with steroids. According to court records, investigators set up a sting in June and recorded an associate of Koch paying $2,000 for several different kinds of steroids.

At the time, Young testified, authorities did not know who the supplier was. Young said Rivers later confessed that he had bought steroids and supplied friends who worked at same gym he did.

Asked by Steele how long Rivers had been selling steroids, Young testified that Koch’s wife told investigators that her husband had been buying the drug for about 2 years but that he initially had a different supplier.

Young said that Rivers has been among the most cooperative defendants he ever has dealt with but that, unfortunately, “He’s been cut off from the supply chain. I don’t know how useful he will be.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Brinson also agreed that Rivers has been helpful.

“However, this is a serious offense, and government believes it does warrant a guideline sentence,” he said.