Editor's Note: This article is reprinted with permission from Miami New Times.
One chapter of the Biogenesis scandal closed yesterday with MLB dropping the hammer on 13 players who bought performance-enhancing drugs at the Coral Gables clinic. But many other questions remain, including whether clinic owner Tony Bosch will ever face criminal charges and how he managed to peddle illegal drugs without a medical license for so many years.
This is sure to complicate that last question: Riptide has obtained a Florida Department of Health report showing that Bosch was actually investigated by the DOH two years ago for practicing medicine without a license. But he was let off scot-free without even being interviewed.
Florida's DOH opened the probe into Bosch, the records show, in the summer of 2011 after receiving an anonymous complaint that he was representing himself as a doctor.
"The subject tells patients he is a doctor, but he doesn't have a medical license or a driver's license," the complaint says.
A DOH investigator began looking into Bosch's clinic, then called BioKem, which was located in the same office space across US 1 from the University of Miami campus where he would later run Biogenesis.
The investigator conducted surveillance on the office four times between June and September, but didn't spot Bosch on any of those occasions.
Then, on Sept. 14, 2011, two investigators met with Carlos Acevedo, Bosch's partner in BioKem. (Acevedo is among those being sued by MLB in its ongoing civil case against Bosch and his business associates.)
