Askew faces up to ten years in prison over testosterone doping conspiracy
The American case against Paul Alexander Askew, a 46-year-old from Jacksonville, Florida, has opened a new chapter in the criminal prosecution of doping schemes linked to major international sports competitions. According to a statement from the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida, Askew pleaded guilty before a federal court in Orlando to conspiracy to influence major international sports competitions through doping. The maximum statutory penalty for that criminal offense is ten years in federal prison, and as of June 1, 2026, a sentencing date had not been set.
According to court documents cited by the U.S. Attorney's Office, from around July 10, 2023, to around January 31, 2024, Askew worked with a professional track and field athlete and at least one other person to provide that athlete with testosterone, a prohibited substance intended to improve athletic performance. Prosecutors state that the use of testosterone related to a period in which the athlete competed at the Ed Murphey Classic in Memphis, the Diamond League in Xiamen, China, and the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon. According to the same source, the investigation uncovered the plan before the same doping pattern could be continued at additional competitions.
Federal prosecutors state that Askew and the athlete intended to use illegal testosterone injections ahead of important competitions in 2024 as well, including the U.S. Outdoor Championships, the World Indoor Championships, the U.S. Olympic Trials, and the Olympic Games in Paris. The athlete was not named in the prosecutor's statement. Associated Press, however, previously reported that the case was connected to American sprinter Marvin Bracy-Williams, who had previously received a 45-month doping suspension.
Criminal proceedings under the Rodchenkov Act
The case against Askew is connected to the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, a U.S. federal law that criminalizes certain international doping conspiracies. That law was passed after the Russian state doping scandal and is aimed at people who organize, enable, or carry out doping schemes in the context of major international sports competitions. According to the official text of the law, its purpose is to introduce criminal sanctions for people involved in international doping fraud, enable compensation for victims, and ensure the sharing of information with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.
For the sporting public, it is especially important that the Rodchenkov Act does not function only as a disciplinary mechanism of sports federations, but as a criminal-law tool. Sports anti-doping sanctions most often end with suspension, annulment of results, and the withdrawal of prizes, while this proceeding can end with a prison sentence. Such an approach sends the message that doping schemes at the international level are not only a violation of sports rules, but also a potential fraud that can affect athletes, organizers, sponsors, television rights, and spectators.
The Office of the U.S. Attorney stated that the case was investigated by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and that it is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Flanigan. USADA CEO Travis Tygart, in a separate statement, emphasized the importance of cooperation between law-enforcement bodies and anti-doping organizations. According to USADA, the case shows why coordinated investigations are important when powerful performance-enhancing substances, such as testosterone, are used to manipulate competition.
Testosterone at the center of more than one proceeding
Testosterone is a particularly sensitive substance in the sporting context because it belongs to the category of anabolic androgenic steroids and can affect strength, recovery, and the ability to withstand exertion. In Askew's case, the U.S. Attorney's Office describes it as a prohibited substance that the athlete was supposed to use to improve performance at major athletics competitions. Although the final sentence will be determined by the court, the guilty plea already confirms that the matter has moved beyond the framework of a classic sports disciplinary proceeding.
The same term also appears in a separate case involving Kenyan marathon runner Deborah Sang, published by the Athletics Integrity Unit, the independent integrity body for athletics. The AIU found that the 26-year-old road runner from Kenya violated anti-doping rules after two findings from international marathons. In her case, this is not a criminal proceeding like the American case, but a sports disciplinary proceeding within the World Athletics system.
According to the AIU decision, on April 6, 2025, Sang provided a urine sample at the 38th Comtrade Belgrade Marathon in Serbia. A laboratory accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency in Seibersdorf, Austria, initially reported a negative finding on April 18, 2025, but an additional analysis was carried out at the request of the AIU. That analysis, on March 4, 2026, showed the presence of testosterone and its metabolite 5β-androstane-3α,17-diol, with a finding consistent with exogenous origin.
In the same decision, the AIU also cited a second finding. Sang provided a sample on January 31, 2026, at the marathon in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and a WADA-accredited laboratory in Lausanne reported the presence of prednisone and prednisolone on February 25, 2026. The AIU also found that the athlete did not have an approved therapeutic use exemption for the substances found. The decision also states that a request for a therapeutic use exemption for oral prednisolone, submitted to the Kenyan anti-doping agency, was rejected on February 7, 2026.
Five-year ban for Deborah Sang
According to the AIU decision, Deborah Sang was notified of the adverse analytical findings on March 11, 2026, and was provisionally suspended. After that, on March 24 in Kenya, she attended an interview with representatives of the Kenyan anti-doping agency, acting on behalf of the AIU, and admitted the anti-doping rule violations. The following day, she signed a form admitting the violations and accepting the consequences.
The AIU treated the two adverse findings as one first anti-doping rule violation, but at the same time found aggravating circumstances due to the use of several prohibited substances. The standard four-year ban was increased to six years and then reduced by one year because of early admission and acceptance of the sanction. The final penalty is a five-year ban from competition, starting on March 11, 2026, the date of the provisional suspension.
The decision also provides for the disqualification of all Deborah Sang's results from April 6, 2025, onward. This includes the loss of medals, titles, awards, points, prize money, and appearance fees earned during that period. The AIU stated that WADA and the Kenyan anti-doping agency have the right to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, which means the decision may be subject to further procedural review if one of the competent bodies requests it.
Kenyan athletics under new pressure
The Deborah Sang case once again puts Kenyan athletics under scrutiny, especially in long-distance and road-running disciplines, in which Kenya has had an exceptional international reputation for decades. The problem for Kenyan sport is not only an individual sanction, but a series of proceedings that are perceived by the public as evidence of deeper weaknesses in the control, education, and supervision of athletes, coaches, and support staff. On its latest sanctions page, the AIU also lists other athletics cases, including Kenyan athletes connected to irregularities in the biological passport or the presence of prohibited substances.
For international sports organizations, cases like this have a double effect. On one hand, they show that additional analyses and subsequent testing of samples can detect substances that were not reported as positive in the initial testing. On the other hand, every new decision against prominent road runners further undermines confidence in results, especially when sanctions relate to a period in which athletes won placements, money, and appearances at major races.
Kenyan institutions have been under pressure in recent years to demonstrate a more effective response to doping cases. In this case, it is evident that the Anti-Doping Agency of Kenya took part in the proceeding, through the interview with the athlete and the processing of the therapeutic use exemption request. Still, the very fact that the athlete admitted using several prohibited substances confirms that the problem cannot be viewed only as a laboratory or administrative issue, but as a broader challenge for the prevention system.
UFC announces new sanction in mixed martial arts
While athletics was marked by Askew's criminal proceeding and the Deborah Sang case, mixed martial arts faced a new announcement of an anti-doping rule violation. According to an announcement by the UFC anti-doping program, welterweight Bassil Hafez accepted a twelve-month ban from competition because of a positive finding for ipamorelin, a prohibited peptide hormone from the category of peptide hormones, growth factors, related substances, and mimetics.
The UFC anti-doping program stated that the prohibited substance was found in a sample collected out of competition on March 20, 2026, in Las Vegas. According to the same source, during the investigation Hafez fully cooperated with Combat Sports Anti-Doping and identified the wellness clinic where he had obtained substances he believed were allowed in recovery from injury. The announcement states that Hafez had not competed since November 2024 because of injury and that at the time the sample was collected he did not have a scheduled fight.
CSAD, however, concluded that the fighter acted with gross negligence because he did not carry out a sufficient check of the ingredients of the product he used. Such wording is important because anti-doping systems generally start from the personal responsibility of athletes for everything they put into their bodies. Even when an athlete claims that he did not know about a prohibited substance, a sanction may follow if the competent body determines that he did not take reasonable steps to check the product, medical treatment, or dietary supplement.
The bigger picture: disciplinary and criminal risks increasingly overlap
Hafez's case is not the only anti-doping matter in the UFC program this year. According to the publicly available UFC Anti-Doping list, sanctions were also announced in 2026 against Alibi Idiris, Carli Judice, Iasmin Lucindo Bezerra, and Mohammed Usman, involving different substances and different circumstances. On May 29, 2026, the program stated that 1,924 samples had been collected in the current year, while in the new testing system the emphasis is placed on the number of test sessions in order to present the scope of monitoring of individual athletes more accurately.
Three separate lines of cases, the American criminal investigation, the AIU decision against the Kenyan marathon runner, and the UFC sanctions in combat sport, show how much the anti-doping system has changed. In the past, much of the fight against doping took place almost exclusively through sports federations, laboratories, and disciplinary panels. Today, the same problem increasingly involves police agencies, federal prosecutors, specialized anti-doping units, international laboratories, and sports arbitration mechanisms.
In Askew's case, the alleged organization and supply of testosterone in order to influence international athletics competitions is in the foreground. In Deborah Sang's case, the focus is on findings from two marathons, the athlete's admission, and the annulment of results through a sports proceeding. In Hafez's case, the decisive factor is the assessment of the athlete's responsibility for a product used during recovery from injury. Although the legal frameworks are different, they share the message that doping risk is no longer viewed only through a positive finding, but also through a network of decisions, helpers, clinics, coaches, suppliers, and competitive consequences.
For athletes, coaches, and support teams, this means a significantly higher level of responsibility. Checking therapeutic use exemptions, the ingredients of dietary supplements, medical treatments, and the source of every substance is becoming a mandatory part of the professional sports environment. For competition organizers and anti-doping bodies, meanwhile, these cases confirm the need for long-term sample storage, subsequent analyses, and information sharing between sports and state institutions.
Sources:
- U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida – statement on Paul Alexander Askew's guilty plea, possible sentence, period of the alleged conspiracy, and competitions covered by the case (link)
- Drug Enforcement Administration – announcement on the same case and the DEA's role in the investigation (link)
- U.S. Anti-Doping Agency – statement by CEO Travis Tygart on the Paul Askew case and cooperation between anti-doping bodies and criminal prosecution authorities (link)
- GovInfo – official text of the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act and description of the law's purpose (link)
- Associated Press – earlier report connecting the Paul Askew case with American sprinter Marvin Bracy-Williams (link)
- Athletics Integrity Unit – decision in the Deborah Sang case, including findings, admission, five-year ban, and disqualification of results (link)
- Athletics Integrity Unit – public overview of the latest sanctions and disciplinary proceedings in athletics (link)
- UFC Anti-Doping – announcements on sanctions in the UFC anti-doping program, including the Bassil Hafez case and other sanctions from 2026 (link)
- UFC Anti-Doping – data on testing and the number of samples collected in 2026 (link)