MIAMI -- On a warm South Florida afternoon, amid the sidewalk cafés and chic boutiques, the single-story shop with the sun-bleached tin roof and eco-friendly solar panels isn't worth a second look. Brown painter's paper covers the expansive street-side windows to conceal the build-out inside.

"Coming Soon" is neatly printed alongside the entrance.

The only clues to the future are can't-miss, stylistic logos dominating the two front doors: BB. And even then, it takes serious sleuthing to discover the letters stand for Body by Bosch.

Bosch, as in Tony Bosch, the hormone specialist who a decade ago proved a PED-dealing thorn in the side of Major League Baseball, would appear to be readying for a grand opening. It looks as if he's about to be back in the feel-good business, back in the old neighborhood, less than a mile from the site of his former -- and infamous -- Biogenesis of America clinic, center of the largest performance-enhancing drug operation in American sports history.

Just around the corner from his new spot, a small, second-floor office housed a temporary clinic.

Bosch confidently told a reporter he'd see him at the grand opening.

But the Body by Bosch glass doors never opened. The would-be clinic's fate was sealed last month with the shuttering of its website -- the one touting a "functional med-spa" that offered everything from weight control programs to hormone replacement therapy and peptide therapy to gender-affirming therapy.

The lone remnant from the Body by Bosch plan is a lawsuit filed by a former partner alleging that Bosch failed to deliver on the partner's $250,000 investment in the business -- a fight still to be waged in the courts. Bosch hastily dismissed the allegation, telling ESPN only that the project wasn't moving along quickly enough for the investor. "Business as usual," he cracked. "It is what it is."

Bosch prefers turning the page to his next chapter.

"My business model changed -- end of story," Bosch said. "I'm moving along with my software [business] and educating other physicians and doing that stuff. Everything clinical and all that, that's being taken care of [by] my daughters, both Sofia and Danni -- I've gotten away from all that. I strictly work with either a physician or physician groups, and my software has done well."

His latest venture remains in the formative stage, vaguely described as a subscription-based resource for physicians as well as entrepreneurs eager to invest in a wellness clinic, offering insight on treatment protocols, compliance regulations, links to compounding pharmacies and marketing strategies. As of now, Bosch said 19 clients have bought into the service, each paying at least $200 a month. The long-range projection is to eventually sign up 500 clients.

For comparison's sake, Bosch suggested thinking of Mindbody, the popular software for the fitness and wellness business.

"The industry has changed," Bosch said of the anti-aging and rejuvenation field. "Everybody and their mothers are doing this s---. You know that, right?

"It's become mainstream. And that's why I thought it was perfect timing for the software. Because it's almost like it doesn't matter what specialty you're in, you want to do some type of cash-based business. ... So, this software allows [investors] to go into the industry without knowing much."

As for what he's selling would-be facility operators, Bosch said, "Forget about the clinical aspect of it. Let's look at the business aspect of it. 'I got to call 50 compound pharmacies. What kind of formulations do I use? Who are the labs that do this? How much is it going to cost me? How do I set it up? What is research-based? What is FDA approved? How do I attract clientele?' And so, the software that I've been working on for so many years simplifies all this for them with the push of a button."

Bosch unabashedly pitches himself as a "specialist in the industry," versed in the ways of hormone replacement and peptide therapy. He has moved into selling advice rather than the daily grind of a clinic. That space has been taken by his daughters, who this summer opened Drip Miami, billed as an alternative holistic IV therapy business. The Coral Gables facility is housed in a building where Bosch's father, Dr. Pedro Bosch, had an office, an address registered with some of Bosch's own ventures.

In the decade since the Biogenesis scandal broke, a search of Florida corporation filings reveal that Bosch has attached himself to a grab bag of entities with names like Legends by Bosch, APB Management LLC, Nuceria, Kokoro Scientific -- some still active, others not. What's clear is that Bosch's efforts to establish a post-Biogenesis niche in South Florida's loosely regulated wellness industry hasn't been seamless but rather has been flush with pitfalls and fractured relationships.

A decade ago, Bosch found himself in the crosshairs of federal agents as well as Major League Baseball's investigators -- a self-described biochemist who introduced himself as "Dr. T" to his Biogenesis clients. The exposure of his illegal work eventually resulted in 21 professional baseball players connected to him getting suspended by MLB, including Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun and Nelson Cruz. Bosch pleaded guilty in October 2014 to conspiracy to distribute testosterone and was one of eight people convicted in a federal drug distribution investigation. He was sentenced to four years in federal prison, with years of monitoring, including drug tests, to follow.

As the investigation would uncover, from 2008 to 2012 Bosch falsely claimed to be a licensed medical doctor and accepted thousands of dollars a month to provide injections, PED-laced dissolvable gummies, testosterone creams and pills to a varied client list that included not only professional athletes from a range of sports but also actors, models, college players, adult film actors and even high school athletes.

These days, Bosch, 59, is working through his own rejuvenation, although what's real and what isn't remains unclear. At one point, he told ESPN of having a signed letter of intent with investors to franchise his Body by Bosch clinic, with the now-shuttered facility to serve as "proof of concept." He still claims to be close to finishing a book, one with the working title of "The Amazing World of Peptides." And there's talk of a deal involving Justin Timberlake to produce an eight- to 10-part series (in Bosch's words: "An inspired by a true story type deal -- 'Wolf of Wall Street' meets 'Catch Me If You Can' meets 'Moneyball.'") The latest from Bosch is that a major production company has taken over the project, although filming has been delayed by the Hollywood writers' strike.

"How's that for luck?" Bosch said.

As for any Timberlake involvement, a senior executive with the performer's entertainment company told ESPN: "We don't comment on inquiries about potential projects."

Over the years, Bosch has told ESPN "I'm creating a brand. That's the space that I'm in. ... I am providing the content, the information. I'm educating, but at the same time building a brand.

"Let me sum it up for you, OK? I'm trying to be, or I want to be, the Tony Robbins of my industry, OK? That is basically it."

Over a decade ago, when the feds took up MLB's request and opened an investigation, Anthony Publio Bosch didn't have branding on his mind. He didn't fancy himself the face of a burgeoning hormone and rejuvenation industry. Instead, he remembers that reality had finally started to set in.

His days were dark and lonely.

The athletes, actors and Miami social scene had vanished. His life's work had collapsed, too. He had little to no relationship with his then-teenage children. Strung out on drugs and booze, scuffling for money and running away from threats, real and imagined, the scraggly face of the headline-grabbing drug scandal said he was suicidal, believing no one was there for him but his elderly parents.

Relief would come in the form of a 14-month stint at four federal prisons that included days in solitary confinement. Once out of prison, in 2016, he faced an additional six months at a halfway house and home confinement before three years of supervised probation -- ending a case that began in 2012 with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's investigation of his Biogenesis of America clinic operation.

"I think the two worst-case scenarios -- either dead or in jail -- I went with one and not the other, thank God," Bosch told ESPN in one of a series of interviews over the past few years. "... I did four or five months of rehab [before going to prison], so who knows, maybe that would have been enough. But just in case, for insurance purposes, I went to prison, and that really did it, because I never want to go back there again.

"... Obviously, I made some bad choices. And I think that God had very little options there left. And he said, 'OK, go ahead, this is your choice.' Hopefully now, my objective is to bounce back, to do the right thing, to learn from my experience and hopefully share my experience with others and help them make the right choices."

While navigating his comeback, Bosch has settled with his third wife into a home not far from where he grew up in Coral Gables. They welcomed another daughter three years ago -- their second since the Biogenesis scandal, making Bosch a father of eight.

But amid the self-described image makeover, Bosch readily basks in his highly publicized transgressions. He had a lead role in "Screwball," the 2018 award-winning documentary that took a light-hearted look at the stranger-than-fiction Biogenesis scandal.

"It's funny, the other day a guy goes, 'Hey, do you have a business card?'" Bosch said with a laugh. "I go, 'I haven't had a business card in years, but you could Google me.'"

ESPN interviewed Bosch dozens of times after his release from prison: on the phone, in person in Miami, and even once in Miami rapper Pitbull's office with a distant view of Biscayne Bay ("You can say we shared the same manager. That is true," Bosch said.) During an early interview while still on probation, Bosch busily mapped out plans for a boutique-style nutrition store. Bosch had a separate office in a cellphone store just west of the Miami International Airport, not far from Trump National Doral.

Bosch wore jeans and a loose-fitting white silk shirt, top two buttons undone and sleeves rolled up. His hair slicked back like Pat Riley. He soon cracked about his weakness for the ladies -- "chicks," as he called them. Like most steroid gurus, he eagerly chatted up his expertise and bragged of his ability to beat the system.

He didn't hesitate handing a reporter some of his signature testosterone gummies -- supplied as a pregame boost for his pro athlete clients.

He flipped through a black composition notebook, one used to track his Biogenesis clients and their protocols. The writing was neat, yet scattered around clients' details were reminders of social events and grocery items to be picked up. As Bosch turned the pages, he made note of his previously identified athlete clients, as well as those who managed to stay below the radar -- a Sri Lankan cricket player, a handful of pro boxers, and at least two now retired baseball players.

Even on probation, a carefree Bosch joked about playing loose, of capitalizing on his downtime to lay the groundwork for his next act. The Federal Bureau of Prisons required him to have a job, but an office beyond a side door in a cellphone business showroom had no connection to the storefront. That makeshift workplace housed three computer monitors -- at the time a reporter visited, one was open to a Jacksonville compounding pharmacy's site. The office walls were covered by whiteboards on which Bosch neatly wrote intricate product formulations and marketing strategies.

This entrepreneurial effort never got off the ground, or perhaps the brainstorming was shoehorned into another venture.

In another post-Biogenesis effort, Bosch filed paperwork with Florida officials creating limited liability companies: Bosch Biotechnologies and Brain & Body Restoration by Tony Bosch. Ralph Navarro, a former Biogenesis client and founder of one of South Florida's largest yacht brokerage firms, told ESPN at the time that he had personally committed $3 million to the venture and hoped to line up an additional $50 million from investors.

Navarro called Bosch a "genius when it comes to creating protocols," citing help with his own weight loss situation.

Navarro later changed his tune, telling ESPN the business partnership failed to launch, adding, "We don't speak to each other. We don't have anything." When asked to explain, Navarro replied, "Times change. Things change. People change."

Bosch said only, "He wanted to change the product, and that wasn't the idea."

But more starts-and-stops and troubles were ahead.

A year ago, the Body by Bosch clinic was nearing completion in an upscale South Miami neighborhood. The leasing agent later said Bosch & Co. "left -- didn't even open." A staffer hired for the clinic said, "They got the wrong investors, and everything just went downhill."

One of the investors, Leandro Lozada, founder of Grand Boulevard LLC, earlier this year filed a seven-count lawsuit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court accusing Bosch of, among other things, fraud in the inducement and breach of contract tied to a $250,000 investment. The suit named Bosch individually as well as Body by Bosch LLC and Bosch Connect LLC.

Under terms of the November 2021 agreement, Lozada allegedly was to receive 10% interest in Body by Bosch and Bosch Connect as well as monthly $5,000 dividends. Lozada claimed in the suit to have received no return on the investment and is seeking $750,000 in damages.

"There were other issues there with him because he wanted to be more of a managing partner, etc.," Bosch said.

Since then, Bosch connected with Joe Garcia-Rios, a former competitive powerlifter, real estate executive and founder of a subscription-based motivational app, in another venture called Kokoro Scientific -- registered in Florida to the address previously housing the office of Bosch's late father. The website describes Kokoro as a "digital clinic offering anti-aging solutions with convenience and privacy through online video visits."

The website describes Bosch as the biochemist; Garcia-Rios, who lives in Miami as well as St. Kitts and Nevis islands, as the brainwave technology developer. Bosch is profiled as having helped over 5,000 clients, citing specifically more than 300 professional athletes who achieved optimal performance while prolonging their careers.

When asked, Bosch told ESPN he doesn't have an active role.

The website details that clients first get blood or saliva lab tests through Kokoro ($150 to $185), then have a virtual appointment with a doctor before arranging for shipment of protocols from Kokoro. Much as with other Bosch wellness ventures, Kokoro offers a shopping list of therapies ranging from cellular regeneration to hormone replacement and erectile dysfunction to brainwave therapy.

Entry to the website leads to soft, soothing background music and ultimately the pitch: "Supercharge your mind, body, and spirit with scientific innovation. Take yourself to levels you never thought possible and get ready to reach peak performance in athleticism and mental clarity. Enhance sexual health. Get ready to unleash a supreme experience that nourishes your life. Explore the Kokoro Scientific empowerment program."

Garcia-Rios said he created the website this year, but he recently told ESPN the business "Probably never will [launch]. Not sure."

No matter, Bosch claims to be in a good place, touting, "The steroid king is now a reformed nutritionist. ... In other words, my message to the young athlete now is, 'Listen, there are no shortcuts. Don't do the steroids.'"

Throughout hours of interviews over the years, Bosch sought to focus on how he is a changed man, what he has learned and his ambitious plans for the future. He wasn't reticent about reliving his past of supplying major athletes with PEDs.

If the post-prison Tony Bosch retains any significant semblance to the Tony Bosch of the Biogenesis era, it's that he remains a gregarious storyteller -- from boasting of how he juiced athletes to reliving the highest and lowest moments of his life. He didn't shy away from sharing the quirky demands of Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and other athlete clients, nor was he hesitant about throwing out new names. He readily described how he exploited pro sports' drug-testing systems ("They are looking for steroids, and we're not giving them steroids. Like I say, it's misdirection") or his claim to have blown through about $800,000 on a decadent lifestyle of drugs and alcohol in the two or three years before he went to prison ("I started using [cocaine] on a daily basis"). Before his first interview with federal drug investigators in April 2014, his attorneys told agents that Bosch had a "substance abuse addiction problem." He twice tested positive for cocaine as his case worked its way through the legal system.

Today, Bosch said he prefers to stay home rather than go out, spending free time with wife, Maria Daza, their 9-year-old daughter -- born just months before he went to prison -- and their 3-year-old daughter. He also has reconnected with his adult children.

Bosch said he long ago caught up on child support (he owed more than $60,000 at one point, according to documents) and said he has also worked out a repayment plan with the Internal Revenue Service for back taxes.

His public existence today? "I am a ghost," he said in one interview.

Tony Bosch's oldest daughter, 36-year-old Danni, probably had the best glimpse into Bosch's out-of-control lifestyle as his clinic came under federal scrutiny and he turned deeper into booze and drugs. She recalled him disappearing and not answering his phone. He couldn't complete simple tasks. He was paranoid and couldn't sit still. His bold and sometimes raging personality only intensified.

"His ego was probably one of the main reasons, one of [his] downfalls," Danni Bosch said. "It was so big compared to now. It was the reason that I think his company failed, his business failed. He just thought he was untouchable -- that he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it."

Bosch's detractors -- and there are more than a few -- aren't so eager to buy into the new and improved Dr. T. They still remember him as the risk-taker who routinely pushed legal and moral boundaries.

Miami-based attorney Frank Quintero Jr. described Bosch as a "con man." "He is the type of person that, for a dollar, will tell you whatever you want to hear," said Quintero, who represented Biogenesis defendant Lazaro "Lazer" Collazo. "Great salesman. And obviously does not know how to do things legally or correctly. ... My personal opinion is that guy couldn't do anything straight if his life depended on it."

But Tony Bosch isn't an anomaly in South Florida or among the other colorful characters found throughout the Biogenesis story.

Tales of the cheaters, fixers and win-at-all-cost suits can be found throughout the more than 1,400 pages of federal DEA documents obtained by ESPN, court records, and interviews with Bosch and others close to the Biogenesis investigation. Ultimately, the scandal touched not only the athletes and dealers but also a cadre of respected professionals entangled in unsavory tactics -- including doctors and lawyers, investigators and talent agents, and from the players' union right up to the commissioner's office.

Bosch acknowledged his own past: "I'm not an angel back then. Now I just go with the truth. Before then, I was as much of a liar as every politician you have heard."

Bosch was born in Astoria in a middle-class neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the Queens borough of New York City. One of his earliest memories is of his father, who fled Cuba in 1961, taking him to a New York Mets game. Bosch likes to champion his New York roots in conversation, although by the time he was in first grade, the family had settled in Miami.

At his February 2015 sentencing, Bosch was described warmly by his mother as an "outgoing, kind, loving and giving person." Stella Bosch further tried to soften the image of her son by recalling a long-ago Easter Sunday when 10-year-old Tony saved his 3-year-old brother, Ashley, from drowning.

"I remember that moment," Stella told the judge. "I froze, and we couldn't get to Ashley quickly enough. When the adults were incapable of acting and screaming ... Tony dove into the pool fully clothed with his Easter suit and saved his brother's life."

When it came time for high school, Bosch would eventually graduate from Christopher Columbus, an all-boys Catholic school. He loved baseball, although he couldn't hang on the field beyond his sophomore year of high school. High-level softball would be a later adult passion.

Unlike his parents, both physicians, he didn't ride the fast track to medical school. He attended two small colleges in North Carolina -- Belmont Abbey and Catawba -- before studying respiratory therapy at Miami-Dade Community College. That led to practicing hyperbaric oxygen therapy and ventilator care at a string of Miami hospitals, which laid the groundwork for him to eventually specialize in anti-aging, or rejuvenation.

A biography provided by Bosch to ESPN described him during that time as a "visionary, innovator and creative genius."

When an elderly patient he cared for passed away and left him $5,000, his father matched it, and Bosch opened a home-care respiratory company. He later sold his part of the business and took off for medical school in the tropical outpost of Belize and was officially awarded a Doctor of Medicine degree in June 2007 from Central America Health Sciences University.

It was in Belize that Bosch got into hormone therapy and anti-aging/wellness medicine. He followed that up by doing a clinical rotation with an El Paso, Texas, endocrinology group studying the impact of HGH on obesity. With his second marriage about to end in divorce, he headed home to Miami and opened a wellness practice with a disgraced urologist who, according to court filings, had lost his medical license after serving time on federal charges that included conspiracy to commit money laundering and health care fraud tied to an impotence drug scam.

With an ex-con and troubled doctor as a mentor, Bosch opened one of his first clinics, VIP Medical, inside his father's Miami office that year, although his father was not involved in the business. Bosch would soon land his first prime-time client: baseball star Manny Ramirez. But what he didn't have was an actual license to practice medicine.

"I never took the boards," Bosch said.

When interviewed by the feds, however, he told a different story, claiming he failed the first section and never returned.

"Listen, I was making a lot of money," Bosch told ESPN. "I was running the business. I got involved with the athletes. I was traveling everywhere. ... What was I going to do? I was going to take the boards and do a residency and get paid, what, 45 grand when I was making 400 grand? You understand? I am not giving you exact numbers, obviously. But I had four children [at the time], bills to pay, child support to pay."

So, license be damned, Bosch went about business after returning to Miami, setting up clinics and freelancing in others as a hormone specialist. He worked out of a Coral Gables tanning salon and a second-floor Key Biscayne dental office. He often would pay off a medical director who would allow his or her name to be used to satisfy Florida law, but it was really Dr. T running each show. Early on, it was just Ramirez, but other athletes later bought what he was selling -- many of their names and doping protocols meticulously handwritten in his clinic logs, including banned substances such as growth hormone and testosterone.

His ego soared when pro athletes sought his help.

"I got wrapped up in all of this," he said. "I took too many shortcuts. My initial thing was to help these guys. Later, it was, 'OK, let's circumvent the legal aspect of it. Let's beat the system.'

"I reflect now, and the first thing that comes to mind is we could have most likely achieved the same thing without taking those shortcuts and breaking all those rules. I could have set boundaries. And I never set boundaries. Basically, I allowed the client or athlete to do whatever they wanted to do. ... We could have still achieved that performance without the drugs that we were using. Rather than testosterone, maybe we could have used other medications, prohormones, to achieve that."

Former longtime girlfriend Claudia Cosculluela, who had a front-row seat to Bosch's clinic hustle, told federal authorities of Bosch "swaying from saying he was a doctor to being a biochemist." She recalled him bragging about celebrity clients, none more so than Rodriguez. She said his go-to line was he could "make you look like a million dollars" -- and had the know-how to mask PED usage.

One of his ex-wives told authorities Bosch claimed to be in the business of turning athletes into "superheroes."

What irks Bosch looking back on the Biogenesis media coverage is the failure among many to acknowledge his intellect and formal science training.

"I have been called every freakin' thing from A to Z," he told ESPN. "Only one thing that bothered me. ... 'Dr. Tony Bosch -- but he is really not a doctor.' That bothered me. Let me explain why. I do have a doctorate degree in allopathic medicine. So, I didn't say, 'Hey, call me 'Doctor.' I never had anything that said M.D. I never misled anybody.

"If you were to ask me, 'What is your specialty?' Biochemistry, absolutely. I am a biochemist. I have a doctorate degree in allopathic medicine. Allopathic is M.D., more traditional medicine. I earned it. I didn't purchase it online. I have the training to a degree. I don't have the residency training. I don't have the clinical training. And at no point in time did I do the clinical medicine. I did the protocol. I did the scientific."

What also triggers Bosch is the premise that baseball's doping problem rests solely with the likes of Dr. T and the athletes, while a pass is handed to the well-heeled owners, the league brass and the player-agents. He sees hypocrisy in a system disproportionately punishing athletes while so many others benefit from their high level of performance and ability to stay on the field.

"Every single guy that got popped, committed the crime, everybody talked s--- about him," Bosch said of the players busted on his watch. "The next year when the thing was over -- [the player] a hero and he got double the amount of money. Or at least a 30% increase. And all these new contracts, [teams] are still signing them.

"Do they care? No. They go, 'I don't care. It is his money if he gets caught again. We're using him for as long as we can.' I guarantee you, if the team got hit with a fine -- wow, wow."

Further, the popular notion that the national pastime is cleaner today than a decade ago is a fallacy, according to Dr. T.

"The PEDs are alive and well, my friend, in baseball," Bosch said. "They just do it better. It's not what it used to be. They found a way to test for testosterone and they found a way to test for HGH, but they haven't found a way to test for peptides. They think they do, and they don't. So, guess what? It's a peptide game now -- good luck trying to catch them."

Victor Conte and Kirk Radomski, the faces of baseball's two previous major steroid scandals, agreed that performance-enhancing drugs continue to permeate the game -- specifically microdosing with fast-acting forms of synthetic testosterone, as well as EPO (erythropoietin), which increases stamina, and insulin-like growth factor-1 long R3, a synthetic peptide hormone shown to promote muscle growth and repair.

"[Players] are just as dirty as they ever were," Conte told ESPN. "They're just circumventing [advanced detection methods]." He further suggested that league officials and ownership "lack a genuine interest in catching people. It's bad for business."

As for Bosch, he had been hopeful folks with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency or MLB would seek him out for an advisory role, although it seems extremely unlikely with the passing of time.

Said an ex-MLB investigator who spent time with Bosch: "He is a smart guy. He isn't stupid. He is an intelligent guy who unfortunately is diabolical."

However, Bosch said MLB was happy to deal with him until it no longer had a use for him. His experience has led him to question MLB's level of commitment to hunting down drug cheats. At various junctures in his cooperation against Rodriguez and other players, Bosch said, MLB officials led him to believe there might be future opportunities. He claimed to have pitched a plan using analysis of biological data to better detect patterns of PED usage among players, but current commissioner Rob Manfred showed little interest.

"Major League Baseball told me basically, 'Listen, when you're done, we'd like to offer something to you,'" Bosch said. "'But in a consulting capacity, not like a blank check. But something you could help us on, and it would maybe help you redeem yourself. You could do something positive and at the same time maybe make a little bit of money.'"

So far, Bosch said he feels like a forgotten man, although he's not bitter. "That is all fine," he said. "I have a million problems ... but that is not one of them."

Mike Fish is a senior writer at ESPN. Reach him at michaeljfish19@gmail.com. On X, formerly known as Twitter, his handle is @MikeFishESPN.

Tony bosch descent biogenesis doping scandal almost cost life

2023-09-13 19:31:56