"A bodybuilder caught with enough illegally imported steroids to last 34 years probably would have died if he had gone through with his plan to chew through the stash in just two years, a court has been told.
Jonny Mellas, 35, of Labrador yesterday escaped jail time for importing 15,400 anabolic steroid tablets from Thailand after the judge accepted they were for personal use.
His sentence of 18 months in jail with immediate release came after the prosecution tendered a report by a sports science doctor saying that number of pills would last a heavy bodybuilder 17 years and a cosmetic user up to 34 years.
The District Court in Brisbane was also told the tablets, posted to Mellas's address and intercepted by Customs in October last year, could not usefully be kept for years as their potency decreased over time.
Commonwealth prosecutor Lisa McConnell asked Chief Judge Patsy Wolfe to sentence Mellas to a short stint in actual custody to deter him and others from importing such significant quantities of steroids.
She also said although Mellas was not charged with trafficking, there was a commercial potential simply because of the sheer number of tablets imported.
Defence solicitor Bill Potts said Mellas had a long history of abusing steroids and had been planning to use all the tablets himself by taking 25 a day as part of his bodybuilding lifestyle that seemed to be 'tied up with feelings of inadequacy regarding his relationship with his father'.
He said Mellas had been 'abusing himself to death' and suffered a number of severe health problems such as shrunken testes but had now given up his addiction and his wife was expecting a baby next year.
Judge Wolfe said Mellas was lucky to have been caught. "You were so addicted that you ... were going to take 20 to 30 tablets a day. You would be dead now," she said. Mellas was also fined $5000."
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