Australian bodybuilder that smuggled large amounts of steroids escaped from imprisonment

Brenton Dowell, an Australian bodybuilder, was caught possessing and smuggling large amounts of anabolic steroids in March 2011. It was determined that these steroids could be sufficient to be taken for more than sixty years by one user. A lot of people believed that this bodybuilder would be sentenced to jail. But Dowell avoided imprisonment successfully.
The Australian Customs and Border Protection Service noticed that this bodybuilder had attempted to import over 3, 000 g of testosterone powder. The packages that contained the raw testosterone powder were mailed in September, October and November 2011. They were shipped to three various places: to the home of Dowell, to his father and his stepfather.
Actually, such large amounts of raw testosterone powder could be purchased only for manufacture of anabolic steroids by underground labs in order to sell them on the black market. 3, 000 g of raw testosterone powder could be used for getting of 1500 10-ml vials with ready preparations.
Len Hartnett, the defense attorney for Brenton Dowell, argued that the testosterone powder had been bought for his client’s self-administration. He noticed that Dowell’s usage of steroids was caused by bullying attacks that he received, when he was an overweight boy. Thus, according to the defense attorney, Brenton Dowell became addicted to bodybuilding and began to take steroids because he was an overweight child.
The judge Graeme Hicks was influenced by arguments of the defense attorney who presented experiences of Brenton Dowell in his childhood. He mentioned that it could be concluded that Brenton Dowell had become obsessed by bodybuilding.
So, the judge accepted bullying excuse. Based on the descriptions and affirmations of the defense attorney, the judge Graeme Hicks believed that Brenton Dowell had bought steroids for self-administration and for sales to his friends in order to pay off self-administration.
Brenton Dowell was enforced to pay a fine of 10, 000 dollars and to serve 2-year probation.