Trainer Jason Servis was sentenced to four years in federal prison in Manhattan July 26, three years on a felony guilty plea and one year on a misdemeanor, running consecutively. The sentence was the maximum allowed per his charges and guilty plea.
He is to serve one year of supervised release after he leaves prison. His surrender date is Nov. 1.
He made a payment in court of $311,760 in forfeiture, and was ordered to pay $$163,932 restitution and a $30,000 fine.
Invited to address the court, Servis, 66, broke down in tears, before later saying, “No words can express how remorseful and sorry I am for the decisions I've made and the hurt I caused my wife and others.”
United States District Court judge Mary Kay Vyskocil suggested she would have imposed a harsher penalty had she been able to do so.
“In my judgment, more than a 48-month sentence might be more appropriate,” she stated.
“I do accept your expression of remorse,” she later added. “Relatively speaking, you're not an old man. You will have a life after you get out of prison.”
A pre-sentencing memo issued by the prosecution last week revealed new evidence that Servis was lying to owners and hiding drugs in shampoo bottles; read more in this Paulick Report story.
Servis' attorneys, in their own pre-sentencing memos, argued that the trainer was misguided by his veterinarian. In one exchange, veterinarian Dr. Alex Chan told Servis, “I'm a stickler to the rules all the time. I came from NYRA … I know all the rules and stuff … I always look out for the best interest of my clients because I'm the one doing the work … all the horses under my care they're covered, it's all legal.”
Chan would later enter a guilty plea to a felony count of adulteration/misbranding of drugs and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison.
—The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.
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