2 LAPD Officers Linked to Steroids Case : Drugs: The policemen were clients of a physician indicted for alleged illegal distribution, according to affidavits.

A physician indicted for alleged illegal distribution of anabolic steroids had as clients a Los Angeles police officer who charged steroids to his city health insurance and another who showed up for injections in uniform and driving a squad car, court documents said.

Search warrant affidavits made public Thursday said Officers Sergio Ruedas, 36, and Ed Houston, 30, routinely bought the muscle-building drugs from Dr. Walter Jekot, even though they had no medical need for them.

Both are avid weightlifters, according to the documents, which were filed by Sgt. Candace Fisher of the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division. They noted that Houston competes annually in the Police Olympics and Ruedas has been off duty since June because of a bodybuilding-related injury.

The affidavits offered the first detailed glimpse into an ongoing LAPD investigation in the wake of Jekot’s indictment by a federal grand jury last week on 27 felony counts.

No charges have been filed against Ruedas or Houston.

Jekot, who has offices in Los Angeles and Santa Ana, is accused of illegally dispensing anabolic steroids to dozens of bodybuilder clients, including actors, athletes and law enforcement officers.

The indictment had identified only one police officer client by name--28-year LAPD veteran David W. Bennett--but its allegations spawned internal affairs investigations at a number of local agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department.

Department spokesman Lt. Fred Nixon refused to discuss the probe, except to say it is continuing. Neither of the officers could be reached for comment.

Anabolic steroids are restricted by the federal Food and Drug Administration to be used only for limited medical conditions. Their known side effects include liver tumors, jaundice, impotency, sterility, shrinking of the testicles and increased risk of heart disease and stroke.

Nonetheless, their illicit use has been common among some bodybuilders for muscle enhancement. Jekot’s indictment was part of a U.S. Justice Department crackdown on the $300-million annual steroid market.

According to medical records recovered from Jekot’s office, the court papers alleged, Ruedas, a patrolman in the Northeast Division, had been getting steroids from Jekot since 1987 “with no valid medical reason indicated.”

A search of his home, car and police locker this month turned up eight syringes and several bottles of prescription steroid drugs, the documents said. In an accompanying affidavit, Jekot’s former medical secretary, Carol Ann Hartmann, said that Ruedas had “fraudulently used his medical insurance to pay for illegally obtained anabolic steroids.”

Houston, 5-foot-10 and 245 pounds, had been seeing Jekot since 1982, the documents said, describing him as an “avid” weightlifter.

Occasionally, Hartmann’s affidavit said, Houston would see Jekot for medical reasons, but most of his visits were for regular “bodybuilding injections,” which Jekot dispensed without an appointment. Sometimes, she alleged, Houston would show up in uniform driving his squad car, but after 1989, he always wore plainclothes.

Jekot, the secretary’s affidavit said, referred to the injections as “vitamin shots,” but she knew the injections were anabolic steroids, and noted that Houston had once called Jekot’s office asking “if the ‘stuff’ was in yet.”

When she confronted the doctor, he admitted that he dispensed the drugs, but “said if he wanted to sell one or two bottles of steroids on the side, it was his business,” the affidavit said.

The papers noted that a number of prescription steroid drugs were found among Houston’s effects, along with a copy of the book, “The Underground Steroid Handbook.”