NEW YORK — A doctor, his health clinic and a pharmacy were indicted on charges of illegally providing steroids to bodybuilders and weightlifters.

The Brooklyn district attorney's office said Tuesday that Dr. Richard Lucente wrote prescriptions to patients who had no medical need for them, then steered them to a pharmacy in Brooklyn in return for $30,000 in kickbacks.

Bodybuilder Joe Baglio, who had had a heart transplant, received steroids illegally from Lucente and died of heart failure, District Attorney Charles Hynes said.

Charges in the 76-count indictment include criminal sale of a prescription for a controlled substance and reckless endangerment. A call to Lucente's office was not immediately returned.

Besides the kickbacks, Lucente collected about $500,000 in fees from about 220 clients who were provided with steroids or other illegal substances, the prosecutor said. He declined to comment on reports that New York City firefighters and police officers were among Lucente's clients, citing federal health confidentiality laws.

"He gained a reputation as someone who would sell ... to any bodybuilder, weightlifter or athlete," Hynes said.

The announcement came a day after Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez acknowledged that he took steroids while playing with the Texas Rangers from 2001-03 — an issue that came up in President Barack Obama's first presidential news conference.

"If you're a fan of major league baseball, I think it tarnishes an entire era, to some degree," Obama said.

The charges in the Brooklyn case stem from an investigation into a network of steroids-peddling health clinics and pharmacies in Florida, Alabama, New York and Texas.

One of them, Lowen's Pharmacy in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge section, was named as a defendant in Tuesday's indictment, along with Lucente's Staten Island-based New York Anti-Aging & Wellness Medical Services.

The pharmacy has been raided at least twice by state narcotics investigators, who confiscated steroids, customer records and a supply of Chinese-made human grown hormone with an estimated market value of $7.5 million.

It is not illegal in New York for a pharmacy to dispense steroids and human growth hormone for valid medical purposes, but their activities are tightly regulated and it is a crime for a doctor to prescribe drugs without examining the patient.

According to court records, Lowen's became a national supplier of banned substances in late 2004 after it struck up a business partnership with the proprietor of an alternative health clinic in Los Angeles.

The owner of the pharmacy, John Rossi, fatally shot himself last year amid the criminal investigation into the store's sales of performance-enhancing drugs. Rossi was named in former Sen. George Mitchell's report on drug use in baseball.