Jesse Hagard sentenced to 366 days in a halfway house

An alternative medicine practitioner from Arizona who once defiantly advocated the benefits of steroids tearfully pleaded for his freedom in Mobile last week.

U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade told Jesse S. Haggard that she appreciated his change of heart but added that she could not let him go free. She sentenced him to a year and a day in prison but recommended to federal corrections officials that he serve his time in a halfway house.

Haggard, 32, was one of 12 people indicted in 2008 as part of a long-running investigation into an online compounding pharmacy in Mobile, Applied Pharmacy Services.

But Haggard headed for Costa Rica, where he made radio appearances passionately defending the therapeutic benefits of steroids.

Reading from a prepared statement last week, Haggard renounced those views in a sob-filled apology.

"Although I feel my error was an error in knowledge more than an error in morality, I now tread more humbly," he told Granade.

Haggard admitted that he prescribed 4,880 dosage units of multiple anabolic steroids, human growth hormone and other drugs to patients who had no legitimate medical reason to take them.