Now that the barred Thoroughbred trainer Jorge Navarro has admitted in open court that he doped racehorses and procured performance-enhancing drugs [PEDs] for others between 2016 and 2020, the industry has a $25,860,514 question to kick around between now and when “The Juice Man” gets sentenced Dec. 17.
Beyond Navarro's potential five-year prison term and possible deportation back to his native Panama, the 46-year-old conditioner also must pay restitution to victims in that astronomical amount as per the stipulations of his plea bargain.
Although it is unclear exactly how federal prosecutors arrived at that precise figure, a press release from the United States Attorney's Office (Southern District of New York) states that it reflects “winnings obtained through his fraudulent doping scheme.”
Most likely, the calculation is based on the purse earnings of Navarro's trainees in races that prosecutors deemed he ran doped horses.
As part of the deal he cut with the feds (Navarro pled guilty to one felony count of conspiring to administer misbranded and adulterated drugs in exchange for having a similar second count dropped), Navarro had to affirm to Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil that the government was citing a proper amount of restitution.
For perspective, that massive dollar figure equates to nearly 75% of all the purse winnings Navarro's horses amassed during his 15-year training career.
Whether or not Navarro will ever be able to pay such a daunting amount of restitution based on gross purse winnings (and not the actual net profits from his crimes) is the obvious question.
Equally important–but perhaps more of an exercise in theoretical justice–is who exactly qualifies as a victim of Navarro's crimes to be eligible for restitution?
Let's tackle the “ability to pay” aspect first.
According to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) explanation of the restitution process, “In federal cases, restitution in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars is not unusual. While defendants may make partial payments toward the full restitution owed, it is rare that defendants are able to fully pay the entire restitution amount owed. If and when the defendant pays, you most likely will receive a number of small payments over a long period of time…”
“Realistically…the chance of full recovery is very low. Many defendants will not have sufficient assets to repay their victims. Many defendants owe very large amounts of restitution to a large number of victims.”
A separate 2019 explanation from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) states that “Federal prosecutors collect roughly $1 billion a year for the victims of federal crimes. Yet prosecutors will likely never secure more than $1 out every $10 owed.”
As for who qualifies for restitution, that CRS publication offers only broad clues: “As a general rule, a victim is a person [or a business or some other entity] who is physically injured, or who suffers a property loss, as the proximate result of a qualifying offense. A victim may also be someone named as a beneficiary in a plea bargain.”
The logical leap for many racing industry participants is that the people who suffered purse losses by getting beaten by Navarro's hopped-up horses should be at the top of the list for qualifying as victims.
But just think of what a formidable task it would be for federal officials to try and account for each and every racing entity (owners, trainers, jockeys) who is owed some sort of payback for their losses. The effort would span years of races across multiple jurisdictions, and would take on an additional layer of difficulty because some horse ownerships are comprised of multiple individual partners.
And what about bettors who otherwise would have hit winning tickets if Navarro's doped runners didn't taint the outcomes of potentially thousands of races? (This also presumes that they could properly document any pari-mutuel losses to Navarro's juiced horses.)
The good news is that according to the DOJ, there is actually a provision for large numbers of unknown victims to come forward and ask to be included in restitution when authorities don't know the names of each and every individual.
Instead of listing specific victims, the restitution order could say something broad like, “Anyone who owned, trained or rode a horse that finished behind a Navarro trainee in the following list of races.” It would then be the victims' responsibility to come forward and make themselves known.
But the bad news for potential claimants is that federal prosecutors–and the judge–could decide that trying to process such a humongous volume of claims is just too cumbersome a task at a time when the legal system is already overburdened.
In that instance, the DOJ states that, “A court may decline to order restitution if it finds that determining restitution in a case is too complex.”
TDN attempted to contact the U.S. Attorney's office in New York several times last week to try and get a general idea of who might be identified as victims in Navarro's case and what the restitution process might look like.
We're still waiting for a call back from the feds.
It's important to note that Navarro's nearly $26 million in restitution is different and separate from the $70,000 forfeiture that he must pay the government before his sentencing date. That amount represents the value of adulterated drugs that prosecutors deemed Navarro transacted via interstate commerce.
Since the actual drugs themselves cannot be located to be forfeited–presumably, those PEDs long ago coursed through the systems of X Y Jet, War Story, Shancelot, Sharp Azteca, and numerous other Thoroughbreds that Navarro has admitted to drugging–he must forfeit the monetary value of those drugs to the government instead.
Back on Aug. 3, Kristian Rhein, a now-suspended veterinarian formerly based at Belmont Park, changed his plea to guilty on one felony count of drug adulteration and misbranding for use in the covert doping of racehorses. At that hearing it was revealed that the working number the feds are alleging co-defendant Jason Servis won illegally with his purportedly doped trainees is also roughly $26 million.
That's half the $52 million in purses that Servis's trainees bankrolled during his entire two-decade training career between 2001 and 2020.
If Servis ends up getting convicted at a trial (or changes his “not guilty” plea like six other defendants have already done), it's expected that he will be on the hook for that amount in restitution.
Let's assume that Servis, like Navarro, will be unlikely to meet that obligation.
What then, is the purpose of mandating such a large financial penalty if the DOJ is well aware most victims only end up collecting 10 cents on the dollar?
Part of the answer has to do with federal sentencing guidelines.
All sorts of aspects of a crime affect sentencing levels. For example, if a defendant is deemed to have abused a position of public trust, or used a special skill in a manner that facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense (which both Navarro and Rhein admitted to as part of their plea bargains), the penalties increase by two sentencing levels.
But another part of the guidelines states that if a conspiracy causes a financial loss to victims in the range of $25 million to $65 million, the severity of the crime gets bumped up by a much more serious factor of 22 levels.
So even if victims never see any of the money that is due to them via restitution, the fact that both Navarro and Rhein affirmed in their plea bargains that roughly $26 million was the amount of the losses they caused others to incur, it can have significant bearing on how long they'll be sentenced to prison. Hitting that lofty $25-million-loss mark is a key component to stricter sentencing.
If it's any solace to potential victims, remember that federal restitution orders are enforceable for 20 years. So even if Navarro serves his maximum sentence of five years and walks out of jail a free man, victims can still hound him for money 15 years beyond that by securing liens against any property he might have or by suing him in civil court based on his criminal conduct that led to the conviction and issuance of the restitution order.
And here's one last thought: Although it's unlikely to happen, wouldn't it be amazing if Judge Vyskocil declared in the restitution order that the true victims in this case are not people, but all of the Thoroughbreds known to be doped by Navarro?
And in lieu of awarding payments to those individual equine victims, how about if the court instead assigned the restitution benefits to accredited Thoroughbred aftercare and welfare organizations?
Those organizations would probably never get all $25,860,514. But even if Navarro was made to pay as much as he possibly could over the next two decades to help horses, it would seem like fitting retribution as well as worthwhile restitution.
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