US District Court

The former Standardbred trainer Nick Surick, who was sentenced to 62 months in federal prison last month for his role as a "doping mentor" in a years-long scheme that eventually resulted in him pleading guilty to two counts of drug adulteration and misbranding and one count of obstruction, lodged an appeal of both his conviction and his sentence Feb. 7. As TDN's Bill Finley reported from Surick's Jan. 19 sentencing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York), Surick was ordered to serve one of the longer prison...

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...

Bob Baffert filed a legal response Friday to the New York Racing Association (NYRA)'s recent attempt to dismiss his amended civil complaint, in which the Hall-of-Fame trainer is fighting an allegedly "sham" hearing process initiated by NYRA to determine if he will be excluded from New York's premier tracks. The Dec. 10 filing in United States District Court (Eastern District of New York) rebutted and reargued a number of legal points that have already been volleyed back and forth by both sides since Baffert filed the initial version of his...