PEDs

NEW YORK--Standardbred trainer Chris Oakes, who has admitted to supplying Jorge Navarro with performance- enhancing drugs as well as using illegal drugs with his own horses, was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday. In October, Oakes, 57, pled guilty to one count of misbranding and drug adulteration with intent to defraud or deceive. The decision was handed down by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York before a small audience that included Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural. Under the sentencing...

The trial of alleged doping conspirator Jason Servis got pushed back to early 2023 at a status conference in federal court on Thursday. Robert Gearty of the Blood-Horse first broke the Feb. 24 story from United States District Court (Southern District of New York). Gearty reported that the former trainer's trial will take place in the first quarter of 2023 along with that of veterinarian Alexander Chan. Previously, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil had been aiming for a mid-2022 trial for Servis, the most prominent name among the remaining defendants asserting...

Marcos Zulueta, the former mid-Atlantic-based trainer with an abnormally high win percentage who was caught on wiretaps procuring drugs for and boasting about Thoroughbred performance-enhancing regimens with the convicted horse doper Jorge Navarro, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison on Thursday. Zulueta, 53, had pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of adulterating and misbranding drugs with the intent to defraud or mislead. As part of a plea agreement, he had previously agreed to forfeit $47,525. At his Feb. 24 sentencing, the remaining two open felony charges...

It was back in October of 2018 that a small-time harness racing owner and trainer named Adrienne Hall reached out to veterinarian Dr. Seth Fishman. She was new to the Florida harness circuit and says she simply was looking for a vet to help her with her horses. What she did not know at the time was that she had just made one of the worst mistakes of her life. Hall's relationship with Fishman evolved and became complicated. It led to Hall, 42, testifying earlier this year in court against...

Before he was caught up in the probe into performance-enhancing drugs in horse racing and arrested for selling and shipping adulterated and misbranding drugs, Scott Robinson was living large. He drove a Lamborghini and his on-line businesses that the government has charged were selling PEDs were pulling in millions. There was never any shortage of customers. "I sold to everybody," said Robinson, who added that he had "thousands of customers," and not just in horse racing. Robinson said his products were bought by individuals using them with camels, racing greyhounds,...

New York federal prosecutors in the horse-doping trial of Dr. Seth Fishman neared the finish line Jan. 28, bringing their case to a close after calling 11 witnesses and presenting evidence from FBI wiretaps. "At this time the government rests its case," prosecutor Anden Chow told U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil on the trial's eighth day. A short time later, the defense rested their case without calling any witnesses or putting the accused veterinarian on the stand to testify. Without the jury present in the Manhattan courtroom, Vyskocil...

An attorney who has been in the headlines for defending high-profile clients such as the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted NXIVM "sex cult" leader Keith Raniere, and the convicted Mexican drug lord and murderer Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera on Monday got added to the legal team for Seth Fishman, the indicted Florida veterinarian whose trial in the nationwide racehorse doping conspiracy case begins Jan. 19. The New York-based lawyer Marc Fernich, who has extensive experience defending clients in the United States District Court (Southern District of New York)...

Michael Kegley, Jr., the former sales director for the company that sold the purportedly performance-enhancing drug (PED) SGF-1000 that is at the heart of a years-long investigation of an international racehorse doping conspiracy, got sentenced to 30 months in prison on Thursday. Kegley, 41, had pleaded guilty in July 2021 to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding. He had admitted in open court at that time that as sales director for the Kentucky-based MediVet Equine, he sold SGF-1000 and other products to trainers and veterinarians, knowing that there was...

Kristian Rhein, a suspended veterinarian formerly based at Belmont Park who was caught on a wiretap bragging that he sold "assloads" of SGF-1000 to racehorse trainers, was sentenced to three years imprisonment Wednesday after pleading guilty to one felony charge within the federal government's sprawling prosecution of an allegedly years-long conspiracy to dope racehorses. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil imposed the maximum-allowable prison term under federal sentencing guidelines Jan. 5 in United States District Court (Southern District of New York). According to the court order filed in conjunction with his sentencing,...

Federal prosecutors and the legal team for Seth Fishman continue to spar over allegations by the government that the indicted Florida veterinarian should have his bail revoked for allegedly still selling purportedly performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) while awaiting trial in the international racehorse doping conspiracy case. The latest legal salvo, fired Dec. 17 by prosecutors in the form of a letter, comes three days before Fishman's Dec. 20 bail revocation hearing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York). This latest plot twist in the case began Dec. 6,...

Federal prosecutors recommended Friday that the barred trainer Jorge Navarro be sentenced to the five-year maximum prison sentence for his admitted role in a years-long horse doping conspiracy, and they want the judge to make him pay $25.8 million in restitution to victims who were cheated out of purse money. "Navarro's aggressive pursuit of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs)--and his eagerness to use racehorses under his care to test the potency of novel PEDs--displayed a particularly callous disregard for the well-being of the horses under his care and control," government attorneys wrote...

An employee of Florida veterinarian Seth Fishman last week permitted Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to search her workplace, and the inside tip has allegedly yielded evidence that Fishman is still selling purportedly performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) while awaiting an expected January start to his trail in the international racehorse doping conspiracy case. "Remarkably, despite having been arrested in October 2019 and indicted in 2020 in connection with his sale of misbranded and adulterated drugs designed to be 'untestable' by various antidoping authorities, Fishman apparently persists in touting the efficacy...