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Trial Groupings Reset for Defendants in Alleged Doping Conspiracy

In the wake of nine defendants in the alleged nationwide horse-doping conspiracy case having changed their pleas to “guilty” in recent months, a Nov. 4 status hearing reset the trial groupings for the remaining defendants, with those trials all now anticipated to commence in the first half of 2022.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of United States District Court (Southern District of New York) also ordered that all remaining motions to suppress evidence that are pending on the docket are to be considered denied, noting that her written opinion on that decision is forthcoming.
Trial Group I shall now consist of defendants Seth Fishman and Lisa Gianelli. They had been previously advised their trial will commence on or about Jan. 19, 2022.

Group II shall consist of defendants Rick Dane Jr. and Rebecca Linke. On Thursday, the judge told them to expect to face a trial in the latter part of the first quarter of 2022.

Group III defendants Jason Servis, Erica Garcia, Michael Tannuzzo and Alexander Chan will be tried together at a date that has not yet been set. On Thursday, the judge ordered the prosecution and defense attorneys to get together over the next week to hash out a proposed schedule for the filing of related briefs, after which a trial date can be established by the court.

The now-barred trainers Servis and Jorge Navarro are the two highest-profile defendants in the case.

Navarro has already pled guilty to one count of conspiring to administer non-FDA-approved, misbranded and adulterated drugs, including PEDs that Navarro believed would be untestable and undetectable.

Navarro faces five years in prison at his December sentencing, and has admitted in open court that he doped the now-deceased elite sprinter X Y Jet and other graded stakes stars of his stable over a period of years. Navarro's plea deal also stipulates that he must pay $25.8 million to a list of victims that has not yet been made public.

Servis was the trainer of the former $16,000 maiden-claimer Maximum Security, who crossed the wire first in the 2019 GI Kentucky Derby but was disqualified for interference.

As evidence against Servis's alleged felonies, the feds have purportedly recorded him in numerous wiretapped phone conversations discussing with Navarro the doping regimens of top horses in his care, including administering injections of PEDs to Maximum Security.

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Doping Trial Likely to Get Pushed into 2022

Prosecutors in the federal case against alleged dopers Jorge Navarro, Jason Servis and 12 other defendants told the judge Friday they had no objection to the granting of yet another extension so defense attorneys can sift through the voluminous amount of evidence against their clients, a move that will likely push back the start of the long-awaited trial until 2022 at the earliest.

The May 7 letter from acting United States Attorney Audrey Strauss to U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil was filed fewer than 24 hours after defense attorneys filed their own, separate letter with the court signaling an intent to ask the judge to recuse herself from the case over alleged prejudices.

At deadline for this story, that official “Motion to Recuse” had not yet been filed, nor had the judge's purported conflicts been disclosed. But those separate letters from the defense and the prosecutors stem from discussions the parties had during a May 6 conference call, and all signs now point to the trial not starting until the two-year anniversary of the Mar. 9, 2020, arrests looms within sight.

Defense attorneys were already granted one extension two months ago to file motions to suppress evidence, which involves a massive batch of discovery documentation including transcripts of potentially incriminating phone recordings, emails and text messages.

The 14 defendants have all been implicated to various degrees in the alleged conspiracy to manufacture, mislabel, distribute and administer performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds across America and in international races.

Strauss's letter outlined a proposed timetable that would give the defense one additional month, until Aug. 27, to review and/or object to the evidence, with 90 days tacked on beyond that date to accommodate time for the prosecution to respond and for the defense to offer a standard final reply.

“The parties further conferred on the matter of expert disclosures and timing for any motions relating to the preclusion of proposed experts,” Strauss wrote. “The Government has to date identified two experts and provided summary reports relating to their anticipated testimony. No defense experts have yet been identified…Representatives of the defense have asked that deadlines for expert disclosures [be] set at the subsequent conference to be held in the Fall of 2021.”

The last status conference in the case was held in November; the next one is coming up May 14.

Servis (who transformed Maximum Security from a $16,000 maiden-claimer into a MGISW star during the time the feds collected evidence on his alleged stable-wide doping practices) and Navarro (whom the government allegedly has on tape boasting about dosing elite-level sprinter X Y Jet “with 50 injections” of PEDs prior to a win in the 2019 G1 Golden Shaheen in Dubai) are the two now-barred trainers headlining the case.

The 12 other defendants are drug manufacturers, distributors, stable employees, and veterinarians allegedly involved to various degrees in the five counts listed in the indictment. They are: Erica Garcia, Christopher Oakes, Michael Tannuzzo, Marcos Zulueta, Rebecca Linke, Kristian Rhein, Michael Kegley, Jr., Alexander Chan, Seth Fishman, Jordan Fishman, Lisa Giannelli, and Rick Dane, Jr.

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Marcialis Facing More Than Four Years In Bans

French-based trainer Andrea Marcialis, already serving a six-month ban for allegedly operating a shadow training operation, is now likely to be on the sidelines until April 2025 after an investigation by France Galop stewards led to charges against the 35-year-old for various instances of medication violations and shadow operations, Racing Post reports. The cumulative ban for the four additional charges is three years and nine months. Marcialis picked up his initial ban in December of last year after stewards deemed he and his sister, Elisabetta Marcialis, had conspired to train and run horses in the name of trainer Jean-Claude Napoli.

France Galop stewards found that six horses in Marcialis's care received injections between 48 and 72 hours before racing without a prescription or prior consultation from a veterinarian. Another case involved the seizure of receipts from Marcialis's stable last October that indicated that four of Marcialis's horses had received corticosteroids three days out from racing. One of those horses, Black Morning (GB) (Due Diligence), emerged lame from a race at Saint-Cloud two days after being prescribed the steroid Betnesol with instruction to not run for two weeks thereafter.

On Aug. 31, Marcialis was reported to Saint-Cloud officials after being seen by another trainer in the car park with a 20ml syringe filled with a clear liquid in his hand. Both Marcialis's runners on the card were tested pre- and post-race; one was positive pre-race but negative post-race, however, stewards deemed there was enough evidence to “constitute an act of deliberate doping on a racecourse.”

Marcialis, additionally, picked up a nine-month ban for allegedly running a second shadow operation in Chantilly with license holder Igor Endaltsev, and he was fined €4,000 for refusing to comply with officials in testing a horse at Lyon-Parilly last September. It is unclear at this stage if Marcialis plans to appeal any of the bans.

Marcialis's biggest win came last June courtesy of Way To Paris (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}) in the G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.

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