Stallone Pleads Guilty to Drug Import Charges

Stallone eats roids for breakfast lunch and dinner... for medical reasons, of course. (Courtesy Warner Bros.)

Actor Sylvester Stallone is arguing that he was taking human growth hormones to treat an unspecified medical condition. Stallone plead guilty Tuesday to bringing vials of banned substances into Australia after a customs search of his luggage during a Feb. 16 visit to Sydney uncovered 48 vials of the human growth hormone product, Jintropin, a restricted muscle-building hormone. The Rocky star will face sentencing on Monday.

"I made a terrible mistake, not because I was attempting to deceive anyone but I was simply ignorant to your official rules," Stallone said in a letter to Sydney's Local Court. "I feel terrible that my breach of the rules has set a poor example to members of the public, whose opinion I cherish dearly."

Stallone's lawyer Phillip Boulten said the actor should be spared a criminal conviction, saying Stallone took the hormones for medical reasons that he did not specify.

"The defendant, Sylvester Stallone, is extremely mortified about having been involved in this incident," Boulten told the court. "Had he known that what he was doing was contrary to Australian law, he almost certainly would not have done it."

Prosecution documents handed to the court in March revealed that Stallone had marked "No" on a customs declaration card that asked if he was bringing into Australia restricted or prohibited goods "such as medicines, steroids, firearms, weapons, or any kind of illicit drugs."

"This is not some back-alley body builder dealing covertly with some banned substance in some sort of secret way," he said. "This was a legitimate medical condition being treated by doctors of the top ranking order in the west coast of the United States."

How convenient for Stallone -- a body builder who comes down with an ailment that only steroids can cure. Which celebrity will be arrested next? Will Michael Moore be arrested for breaking the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel-related transactions in Cuba before the release of his new movie Sick-o? Go to celebrity betting in Bodog's Sportsbook and place your bets.