Fading Hollywood star Sylvester Stallone told an Australian court yesterday his importation of two banned muscle-building hormones was a "terrible mistake" caused by ignorance of local laws.
Stallone will be sentenced on Monday next week after he pleaded guilty to bringing dozens of vials of the restricted drugs into Australia during a tour to promote his film, Rocky Balboa.
"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, claiming the drugs had been perscribed to him for an unspecified medical condition.
"I feel terrible that my breach of the rules has set a poor example to members of the public, whose opinion I cherish dearly," he said.
Lawyers for the 60-year-old star of the "Rocky" and "Rambo" movie franchises entered the guilty pleas yesterday on behalf of the actor, who did not appear in court.
Stallone was charged with importing banned substances into Australia after a customs search of his luggage at the start of a three-day visit to Sydney in February revealed 48 vials of the human growth hormone product, Jintropin.
Three days later, Stallone threw four vials of the male hormone testosterone out the window of his Sydney hotel room when customs officials arrived to search it, prosecutor David Agius told the court.
The maximum penalty for bringing Jintropin into Australia without a license is a fine of A$110,000 (US$91,500) and five years in prison, but Stallone faces a maximum penalty of just A$22,000 on each of the two charges and no jail time because the matter is being heard by a local, not federal, court.
Prosecutors have also asked that Stallone be ordered to pay A$10,000 to cover the cost of the customs investigation.
Stallone's lawyer Phillip Boulten said the actor should be spared a criminal conviction.
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