Ross Cohen

Day three of Lisa Giannelli's horse doping trial Apr. 29 featured the cross-examination of a key government witness. Former New York harness trainer Ross Cohen had testified that Gianelli had sold him performance-enhancing drugs that he used to secretly dope horses under his care. He agreed to cooperate with the government after his arrest in 2020 in connection with the FBI's sweeping horse-doping probe. The investigation led to charges against a number of individuals including the prominent trainer Jason Servis. Under questioning by Giannelli attorney Louis Fasulo in U.S. District...

Day two of Lisa Giannelli's horse-doping trial in a New York courtroom began April 28 with opening statements and ended with testimony from an ex-harness trainer turned government cooperating witness. "The defendant wasn't just in the doping business, she was in the deception business," prosecutor Benjamin Gianforte told the jury in U.S. District Court in New York. But defense attorney Louis Fasulo countered by saying that his client couldn't be found guilty because her actions lacked criminal intent. "Intent," he wrote in large letters on a computer screen for the...

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...

It was nearly two years ago when former Standarbred trainer Ross Cohen was among 27 trainers, veterinarians and others snared in the largest horse doping prosecution in U.S. history. In a New York courtroom Jan. 26, Cohen surfaced on the stand as a key government witness against Dr. Seth Fishman--the first of those arrested in the case in Mar. 2020 to go to trial on charges of conspiring to violate adulteration and misbranding laws. As Fishman observed from the defense table, Cohen testified that when he was training horses at...