A Northeast resident and former Philadelphia police detective was ordered Monday to serve four years in federal prison for orchestrating a multi-tiered steroids distribution ring from his Modena Park home.
Keith Gidelson, 36, began his sentence immediately upon the order of U.S. District Court Judge Paul S. Diamond, who also sentenced Gidelson’s wife Kirsten to serve one year of house arrest, followed by two years of probation for assisting her husband in the scheme.
Prosecutors in the case reportedly asked the judge to impose a three-year prison sentence on Gidelson, but Diamond exceeded even that, stating from the bench, “That [Gidelson] had served as a police officer makes his fall into criminality all the more serious.”
Gidelson had pleaded guilty on Oct. 9 to conspiracy to distribute anabolic steroids, as well as 16 counts of possession with intent to distribute the drugs. In exchange for the plea, the U.S. Attorney’s Office withdrew a firearms violation charge against him.
Authorities claimed that Gidelson distributed thousands of doses of steroids and human growth hormone (HGH) at least from 2009 until his April 2011 arrest. He received illegal shipments of the controlled substances monthly from suppliers in Europe and China, investigators said. Some shipments went to Gidelson’s home, while others were sent to a mailbox at a local UPS store.
Gidelson and his wife stored and packaged the products at their home and sold them to a series of customers locally — including other city police officers — and through the mail, authorities said. Many of their customers re-sold the products to other end users, according to the charges.
Gidelson reportedly was injured on duty and went on long-term disability from the police force in 2009. ••
