Published July 22, 2008 02:22 pm -
Former bodybuilder sentenced to prison on drug charges
By Donna Hales
Phoenix Staff Writer
At his sentencing Monday, Scott Thomas Baker, a former Muskogee All-State football player and manager of Healthplex in Muskogee, admitted he knew that selling drugs was illegal, but he did it anyway.
Baker was sentenced to five, 10-year sentences with the first five years in prison. The second five years on each case is suspended. The sentences run concurrently on the charges of distribution of controlled, dangerous drugs.
“I sold illegal substances for at least 10 years — that’s correct,” he told Muskogee County First Assistant District Attorney Jeff Sheridan on cross examination. “If I could go back and change what I did , I would. I shouldn’t have been doing what I was doing.”
Baker, 35, of Fort Gibson pleaded guilty earlier and has 10 days to change his guilty plea.
On four other charges, ranging from possession of controlled, dangerous drugs (including cocaine and Oxycodone) and one misdemeanor, he received suspended sentences and fines.
Baker testified Monday he sold a lot of testosterone in his business.
“I knew it was against federal law ... I should not have sold anybody any testosterone,” he told the court.
Relatives were devastated at the Monday sentencing by District Judge Thomas Alford.
Alford said he appreciated Baker’s apology to his family and the community.
“But I’m convinced Mr. Baker knew he was doing something illegal — and a whole lot of it,” Alford said as he announced the sentence.
Baker’s wife, Sarah, cried and sobbed. The couple has two young daughters. She had pleaded with Alford to give her husband a suspended sentence.
Scott Baker took the stand and told the judge although he was a professional body builder after college and has a master’s degree in exercise physiology, that since his experience with steroids that he’s completely out of that body building business.
“I’ve totally disassociated myself from the industry,” he testified.
He’s the general manager for a construction company owned by his parents and works mostly in and around Tahlequah.
A probation officer for 16 years who prepared Baker’s pre-sentence report, Julie Walker, testified Baker needed to go to prison.