mugzy
MuscleHead
- Aug 11, 2010
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Spartan Fitness, a Glens Falls, NY-based club that was popular with local athletes, has closed after its owner, Scott Rabine, pleaded guilty to two felonies. He admitted to selling prescription painkillers outside his gym and fraudulently receiving more than $4,600 in benefits from Medicaid.
Scott R. Rabine, 44, of Fort Edward, agreed to serve a state prison term of between 8 and 12 years after pleading guilty to third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance and third-degree grand larceny. Warren County Judge John Hall will determine the length of the prison term when Rabine is sentenced on April 21.
Rabine admitted selling prescription painkiller pills outside his former Broad Street gym, Spartan Fitness, last June 18, and committing Medicaid fraud to receive more than $4,600 in benefits in recent years.
Court records show he failed to claim $128,713 worth of income in 2013, and that Medicaid paid for the oxycodone pills he sold to police on at least four occasions last spring and summer.
He sold as many as 134 pills during one of the sales, and the sales were all videorecorded and audiorecorded during a joint investigation by Glens Falls Police and State Police. Two different undercover State Police officers made the purchases from Rabine, who police believe had been selling drugs in the region for years.
He also was accused of illegally selling anabolic steroids and possessing a shotgun as a felon, but those charges will be dropped as part of the plea deal.
The gym was popular with local athletes, including of dozens of high school athletes from around the region. It remained open for a short time after Rabine's arrest and jailing, but has since closed.
Washington County District Attorney Tony Jordan, whose office handled the case as a special prosecutor after the Warren County District Attorney's Office stepped away from the case, said the length of the prison term will depend on a number of factors, including the findings of a pre-sentence investigation by the Warren County Probation Department.
"We think it is a fair range (for the sentence), a fair resolution to the case," Jordan said.
Rabine will spend 3 years on parole after his release from prison.
Rabine has a prior felony conviction for leaving the scene of a personal injury accident in Saratoga County in 2008. He is free on bail and electronic monitoring, pending sentencing.
His lawyer, E. Stewart Jones, could not be reached for comment after Friday afternoon's hearing. Trial in the case had been scheduled for March 12.
