Two owners of a Florida business that prospected for steroid customers on the Internet, producing about $5 million in annual revenue, pleaded guilty Wednesday to drug charges in a New York court.

Greg Trotta, 38, and Brian Schafler, 34, both of Delray Beach, Fla., agreed to testify against others in the multistate investigation by Albany County prosecutors in return for sentences of five years' probation. Each pleaded guilty to felony third-degree diversion of prescription medications and prescriptions, admitting they helped get drugs in 2006 for customers in upstate New York who had no medical need for them.

"I would actually put the order in," Schafler said in court.

He said he talked with customers, then had them talk by phone with Dr. Gary Brandwein, another owner of MedXLife.com, who signed and sent prescriptions, which were filled by Signature Pharmacy of Orlando.

"They paid for hits on Yahoo and other search engines," Assistant District Attorney Christopher Baynes said. Internet users who searched the word "steroids" would pull up MedXLife's Web site ahead of others, he said.

In business for about three years, the company was selling steroids, human growth hormone and testosterone, and it was the second biggest producer for Signature, Baynes said.

"They did $5 million dollars a year in business," he said.

The Web site says MedXLife is currently unable to complete patient orders, not taking new patients or refilling prescriptions.

In New York, it is illegal for a doctor to prescribe drugs without examining the patient in person, and illegal for a pharmacy to dispense prescription drugs without a valid prescription. Both Trotta and Schafler said Brandwein didn't see the patients.

Brandwein of Boca Raton, Fla., a 44-year-old osteopath, has pleaded not guilty to six counts in Albany County Court related to the criminal sale of a controlled substance. Four owners and employees of Signature, which is at the center of the investigation, also have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges.

Charges are pending against seven others. Five other people from Texas, Florida and New York, including two former physicians, have pleaded guilty.

Trotta and Schafler agreed to forfeit $10,000 each. District Attorney P. David Soares said that restitution will exceed the investigation's expenses so far.

Prosecutors say they targeted distributors, not customers, who reportedly included several professional athletes.

Stewart has insisted that she "is not a traitor" and has said that she was only advocating for her client. She remains free pending appeal of her conviction.

But lower federal courts have disagreed about what happens if a company voluntarily chooses to clean up a site: can it sue other companies, or the U.S. government, to recover costs? Or does the Superfund law require a company to be sued by the EPA first, before it can take action against other parties?

The U.S. government has taken the latter position. The Bush administration argued in court filings that requiring companies to be sued by the EPA before they can recover costs from other entities encourages companies to settle with the government.

There "is little evidence that...Congress," when it enacted the Superfund law, "intended to promote unsupervised cleanups at the expense of government-supervised cleanups pursuant to a settlement or suit," the Solicitor General, the government's lawyer, wrote.

Environmentalists and several U.S. business groups respond that such an interpretation would discourage companies from initiating their own cleanups. The EPA is stretched too thin to oversee the rehabilitation of every site, a coalition of business groups wrote in a court brief.

The case before the court Monday stems from a lawsuit filed by Atlantic Research Corp. in 2002. Atlantic Research retrofitted rocket motors under contract with the U.S. government in the 1980s at an industrial park in Camden, Ark., according to court filings.

Rocket propellant contaminated the industrial park as a result of the work, and the company voluntarily cleaned up the pollution. It then sued the federal government in 2002 to recover some of the costs.

A district court sided with the government, but the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Atlantic could proceed with its suit. The government then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Several business groups, including the Superfund Settlements Project and trade associations representing the chemical, oil, and utilities industries, signed onto a brief supporting Atlantic Research. The Superfund Settlements Project represents 10 corporations, including General Electric Co. and United Technologies Corp., that have spent $6 billion on hazardous waste cleanups, the group's lawyer said.

The Supreme Court of California ruled against Brendlin in 2006, holding that passengers are not automatically seized during a traffic stop, and allowed the evidence to be used in the trial. Brendlin is now backed by the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP, which fear that a judgment for the state would give police broad power to stop vehicles to search passengers. Brendlin's conviction may stand regardless of the Court's ruling, as at the time of arrest he was wanted for an unrelated parole violation, which itself may have justified the state's search. AP has more.

The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments in two other cases Monday. In United States v. Atlantic Research Corp, 06-562, the Court must decide whether owners of areas contaminated by hazardous materials that must be cleaned up under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) can recover contribution from other responsible parties before they are subject to a government enforcement action. In Hinck v. United States, 06-376, the Court will decide whether tax courts have exclusive jurisdiction to review an IRS decision to deny a taxpayer’s request for interest abatement or whether district courts and Federal Claims Court also have such jurisdiction.

Prosecutors alleged he took two girls to an underground room, bound them with duct tape, raped them and left them to die because the room had no air supply. The girls said they managed to free themselves and escape.

Hinson said the sex was consensual and that he hid in the bunker because he thought police wanted him on drug charges. He testified that he built the room to package marijuana.

Had he been found guilty, Hinson would have faced a mandatory life sentence without parole because he was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl in 1991.