Jordan Fishman, the Massachusetts-based drug formulator who made the illicit substances that were then injected into racehorses by the likes of convicted horse doper Jorge Navarro and the accused doper Jason Servis, got sentenced to 15 months in federal prison Tuesday for his role in the international drugging conspiracy.
Back in October, Fishman, 64, had pleaded guilty to one count of adulteration and misbranding of purportedly performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). He faced a maximum sentence of three years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Instead, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of United States District Court (Southern District of New York) incarcerated Fishman for a time frame squarely in the middle of the prosecution's advised range of 12 to 18 months. Fishman's legal team had argued for a sentence of probation only.
Beyond a $100 court assessment, Fishman was not fined or ordered to pay restitution to victims. He must report to a to-be-determined prison May 9. The court has recommended Devens, the federal correctional facility that is closest to his home.
Jordan Fishman—described by his legal team in a Jan. 24 sentencing document as “a brilliant scientist who went to college at age 16 and holds PhDs in Biochemistry and Carcinogenesis/Toxicology”— is not related to the veterinarian Seth Fishman, who faces 20 years in prison after being found guilty Feb. 2 on two counts of conspiring to violate adulteration and misbranding laws.
But the black-market scientist had previously admitted in court that he was an integral part of the convicted drug-dealing veterinarian's conspiracy.
“Seth Fishman provided the materials and formula requests,” Jordan Fishman told the judge when he pleaded guilty Oct. 6, 2021. “And then I made the solutions consistent with those formulas.”
Jordan Fishman said that between 2017 and his arrest in March 2020, the various substances he created contained vitamins, amino acids, nutraceuticals, and, at times, steroids.
Here's how the feds summed up Jordan Fishman's involvement in their own sentencing submission Feb. 1:
“As with other defendants in this matter, it is not the case that the defendant's crime was the result of a single lapse in judgment. Jordan Fishman brought to bear his specialized training, experience, and his access to a laboratory capable of manufacturing drugs at a large scale.
“His contributions to the conspiracy were crucial for the time period in which Jordan Fishman joined in the conspiracy. The defendant may have taken false comfort in holding the end user at arm's length as justification for continuing his crimes. But Jordan Fishman was under no illusions as to the intent of the conspiracy, or his role within it.”
The alleged international “corrupt scheme” to manufacture, mislabel, rebrand, distribute, and administer PEDs to racehorses all across America and in international races began with a blitz of coordinated Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests nationwide on Mar. 9, 2020.
In March 2021, the guilty-pleading Scott Robinson, a former veterinarian, was the first to be sentenced. Her got 18 months in prison and had to forfeit $3.8 million in profits.
In June, Sarah Izhaki was sentenced to time already served plus three years of supervised release for selling misbranded versions of Epogen.
In September, Scott Mangini, a former pharmacist who had pleaded guilty to one felony count related to creating custom drugs for racehorses, got sentenced to 18 months in prison. As part of a plea agreement, prosecutors demanded a forfeiture of $8.1 million.
In December, the barred trainer Jorge Navarro wept in court after Vyskocil handed down a maximum-allowable sentence of five years imprisonment. Navarro had pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring with others to administer non-FDA-approved, misbranded and adulterated drugs, including PEDs that Navarro believed would be untestable and undetectable. Navarro was also ordered to pay $25.8 million in restitution and could face deportation to Panama.
On Jan. 5, 2022, Kristian Rhein, a veterinarian formerly based at Belmont Park who was caught on a wiretap bragging about selling alleged PEDs, got sentenced to a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment after pleading guilty to one felony charge in the conspiracy to dope racehorses. Rhein also must forfeit to the U.S. the criminally gained proceeds that are directly traceable to his offense, which totaled $1.02 million, plus pay $729,716 in victims' restitution.
The following day, Rhein's brother-in-law, Michael Kegley Jr., the former sales director for a Kentucky-based company that marketed and sold the alleged PED known as SGF-1000, got sentenced to 30 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding. He also got hit with a $3.3 million forfeiture (but will be exempt from that full amount of he pays $192,615 within two years of his release from prison).
Seth Fishman, his crimes detailed above, is scheduled to be sentenced May 5, barring an appeal.
Lisa Giannelli, an assistant to Seth Fishman, was supposed to go on trial at the same time as Seth Fishman, but she had her case declared a mistrial in January after her attorney tested positive for COVID-19. Federal prosecutors are in the process of trying to assign Giannelli to one of the two remaining trial groupings of alleged doping conspirators.
Jordan Fishman had already once squared off against Seth Fishman in court prior to his implicating the veterinarian in open court and the two later being found guilty for their crimes.
In May 2020, just weeks after the two were arrested in the federal doping sweep, Seth Fishman filed a federal lawsuit against Jordan Fishman and his Massachusetts-based company, 21st Century Biochemicals, Inc.
That suit alleged that Seth Fishman had made $1 million in loans to Jordan Fishman's company over a period of years, and that in addition to allegedly not getting paid back, “Jordan, acting as the [president and majority shareholder of the firm] has also engaged in a scheme to defraud Plaintiff of his money.”
That case never went to trial. Both parties agreed to have it dismissed after reaching a settlement that involved the company paying $275,000 to Seth Fishman.
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