Feds Skewer Fishman's Attempt to Avoid $13.5M Forfeiture

Federal prosecutors told a judge Friday that convicted veterinarian Seth Fishman's recent claim of illegality regarding the $13.5 million forfeiture imposed upon him “is predicated on a number of unfounded and easily disprovable presumptions.”

Fishman, who is currently imprisoned in Florida but appealing his 11-year sentence for two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, had stated in a Sept. 12 filing that the forfeiture order signed by the judge back on July 11 “is not authorized by statute and is therefore unlawful in its entirety.”

A response filing Sept. 30 by the legal team that successfully prosecuted Fishman stated that, “In arguing that the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) does not authorize forfeiture, the defendant elevates form over substance, ignores past precedent, and, in so doing, deliberately misreads the FDCA and several applicable forfeiture provisions to reach the defendant's desired outcome of avoiding forfeiture altogether.”

The filing by the feds also noted that at the time of his sentencing, “then-counsel for Seth Fishman contended that he wished to contest the amount of the forfeiture money judgment, not the basis for forfeiture itself.”

But shortly after his sentencing date, Fishman hired a new lawyer who now “wishes to revisit the availability of forfeiture entirely.” That new legal tactic has no merit, prosecutors contended.

“The defendant's strained reading of the law provides no support for his view that forfeiture is 'unlawful' in this case,” the government attorneys wrote.

Forfeiture “is lawful and mandatory; consequently the Court's forfeiture order entered at Fishman's sentencing should be left undisturbed,” the prosecutors wrote.

“The defendant argues in passing that the Government has not demonstrated that Fishman 'actually acquired' any forfeitable property,” the feds wrote. “The evidence that Fishman, the owner-operator of [the drug company] Equestology, controlled the adulterated and misbranded drugs subject to the forfeiture action is undisputable. So long as the defendant had control over the forfeitable property, which he did, he has acquired that property…”

Fishman had argued otherwise, writing in the Sept. 12 filing that “Misbranding is not a forfeiture crime. The misbranding statute under which the government seeks forfeiture against Dr. Fishman…only permits the government to confiscate the misbranded or adulterated products themselves and any equipment used to manufacture those products.”