The Week in Review: After Guilty Pleas, Will More Trainers Be Charged?

The next chapter in the scandal that has rocked Thoroughbred racing played out last week when Scott Robinson and Sarah Izhaki both pled guilty to charges relating to the sale and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs used to dope race horses. It was an important development, but the bigger story is this: will it lead to a new and extensive list of indictments against trainers and others who so far have not been charged? That possibility certainly exists.

For now, everything is speculation and the Department of Justice has not said whether or not Izhaki and Robinson are cooperating in the probe, but it’s not hard to connect the dots and by doing so you come up with a scenario whereby the two are in fact cooperating with authorities and are ready to name names.

That’s the most obvious explanation for why they were given a deal by the Department of Justice. In the original indictments, which were announced in March and included 27 individuals, including high-profile trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, Robinson was charged with three counts of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy. The maximum sentence for each count is set at five years. A superceding indictment was released last week in which Robinson is now charged with just one count. Izhaki was originally charged with one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy, plus a charge of smuggling, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. In the superceding indictment, the smuggling charge has been dropped.

“It’s a very logical assumption that they are cooperating and that’s why they have accepted the plea they did,” said former Meadowlands and Monmouth executive Hal Handel, who once served as a deputy attorney general in New Jersey. “It looks like they have thrown themselves on the mercy of the justice department. That seems to be where these two are.”

Izhaki will be sentenced Dec. 2 and Robinson will be sentenced Jan. 15. Should one or the other be hit with something considerably less than five years, that will be another indication that they are cooperating with authorities.

Another story to watch is what happens with Ashley Lebowitz, who was among the 27 indicted in March. She is Izhaki’s daughter and that may mean that she, too, will make a deal.

According to owner and attorney Maggi Moss, who once served as the chief prosecutor of Polk County, Iowa, the give-and-take at the federal level often involves plaintiffs who are happy to implicate others if that means a reduced sentence for them.

“In federal court, the bigger names you get, the more names you get, the more reliable the information is, you continue to decrease your sentence,” said Moss.

If there was ever going to be more dominos to fall after the original 27 indictments, it always stood to reason that more charges would come as a result of drug suppliers cooperating with authorities. Much more so than anyone else, they know who was using what.

“Scott Robinson and Sarah Izhaki represent the supply side of a market of greed that continues to endanger racehorses through the sale of performance-enhancing drugs,” Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said last week in a statement. “Each of these defendants provided the raw materials for fraud and animal abuse through the sale of unregulated and dangerous substances.”

It appears that Robinson is the bigger fish of the two.

“From at least in or about 2011 through at least in or about March 2020, Robinson conspired with others to manufacture, sell, and ship millions of dollars worth of adulterated and misbranded equine drugs…” read the statement from Strauss.

Robinson’s business was apparently so lucrative that he has been ordered to pay the government $3,832,318.90 as part of an order of forfeiture/money judgment. A forfeiture is the involuntary relinquishment of money as a legal obligation for the commission of crime.

So far, less is known about Izhaki’s business According to the Department of Justice’s statement, between February 2018 and November 2019, Izhaki sold and delivered “tens of thousands of dollars of erythropoietin,” which is a blood builder drug. She was bringing the drug in from Mexico, thus the smuggling charge.

“These two people appear to be important defendants,” Moss said. “They were the ones where people were getting the drugs from. They are important links and it would appear to me that they obviously have lists of who they sent drugs to. You wouldn’t think they’d be doing what they were doing and only selling their drugs to two or three people. There has to be a list of who bought this.”

That much seems certain as it’s hard to imagine that the only clients of Robinson and Izhaki were Servis and Navarro and a handful of other Standardbred and Thoroughbred trainers already indicted. If other trainers were buying from them, there should be a paper trail that amounts to a lot of smoking guns. That’s particularly the case with Robinson, who was using a website to sell his drugs to trainers. That would mean a record of the transactions and credit card receipts.

Does that mean they sold their goods to hundreds of trainers, dozens of trainers or just a handful? For now, that is anyone’s guess. But their plea deals have raised the possibility that the Servis and Navarro indictments will turn out to be just the beginning in what is already one of the ugliest stories in the sport’s history.

“If I were someone who was buying drugs from these guys, I’d be very afraid right now,” said Jeff Gural, the Meadowlands owner who worked behind the scenes with The Jockey Club to build a case against the cheaters. “There’s no doubt in my mind that these two (Robinson and Izhaki) are talking.”

 

Starship Jubilee Does It Again

Starship Jubilee (Indy Wind) continues to be one of racing’s best stories. Claimed for just $16,000 (off of Jorge Navarro) in 2017, she picked up the biggest purse of her life when beating the boys Saturday’s GI Woodbine Mile S. It was her 12th stakes win, her 19th overall win and pushed her career earnings over $2 million.

Trainer Kevin Attard now faces a tough decision concerning where she should run in the Breeders’ Cup, with the choices being the GI Breeders’ Cup Mile or the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf. The Woodbine Mile was a “Win and You’re In” race for the Mile. That means Starship Jubilee is guaranteed a spot in that race and the $60,000 entry fee will be waived. Though it’s hard to imagine any scenario where she wouldn’t get into the Filly & Mare Turf, she is not guaranteed a spot, but the entry fee would also be waived for that race.

“Which race we go in is up in the air,” Attard said. “Obviously, we are excited because she ran a big race Saturday. She came out of the race in great shape. We’ll see how things transpire over the next little bit and try to decipher how the two races shape up and decide what direction we will go in.”

Starship Jubilee is the best horse based in Canada and was the 2019 Canadian Horse of the Year. This year, she won’t be eligible for that title. The Woodbine Mile was her first race this year in Canada and for a horse to be eligible for the Canadian Horse of the Year title, they must run at least three times north of the border.

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Two Defendants in Federal Indictment Plead Guilty to Doping Charges

Scott Robinson and Sarah Izhaki each pled guilty today to conspiring to unlawfully distribute adulterated and misbranded drugs for the purpose of doping racehorses. Robinson pled guilty before U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken, and will be sentenced by Judge Oetken Jan. 15, 2021. Izhaki pled guilty before U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, and will be sentenced by Judge Vyskocil Dec. 2, 2020. The guilty pleas are the first major domino to fall from the bombshell FBI indictments that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York dropped in March, which included charges against high-profile trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro.

“Scott Robinson and Sarah Izhaki represent the supply side of a market of greed that continues to endanger racehorses through the sale of performance-enhancing drugs,” said Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. “Each of these defendants provided the raw materials for fraud and animal abuse through the sale of unregulated and dangerous substances: Robinson’s products were manufactured in shoddy facilities with no professional oversight of their composition; Izhaki’s products were smuggled into the country and sold from cars in supermarket parking lots. These convictions show that our office and our partners at the FBI are committed to the prosecution and investigation of corruption, fraud, and endangerment in the horse racing industry.”

According to the Indictments, from at least in or about 2011 through at least in or about March, 2020, Robinson conspired with others to manufacture, sell, and ship millions of dollars’ worth of adulterated and misbranded equine drugs, including performance-enhancing drugs intended to be administered to racehorses for the purpose of improving those horses’ race performance in order to win races and obtain prize money. Robinson sold these drugs through several direct-to-consumer websites designed to appeal to racehorse trainers and owners, including, among others, “horseprerace.com.”

Robinson contributed to the conspiracy by, among other things, sourcing chemicals used to create custom PEDs that were advertised and sold; falsely labeling, packaging, and shipping those PEDs to customers across the country, including in the Southern District of New York; and collecting, reporting, and responding to employee and customer complaints regarding the misbranded and adulterated products advertised and sold online. Among the drugs advertised and sold during the course of the conspiracy were “blood builders,” which are used by racehorse trainers and others to increase red blood cell counts and/or the oxygenation of muscle tissue of a racehorse in order to stimulate the horse’s endurance, which enhances that horse’s performance in, and recovery from, a race, as well as customized analgesics which are used by racehorse trainers and others to deaden a horse’s nerves and block pain in order to improve a horse’s race performance. The drugs distributed through the defendants’ websites were manufactured in non-FDA registered facilities and carried significant risks to the animals affected through the administration of those illicit PEDs.

For example, in 2016, Robinson received a complaint regarding the effect of his unregulated drugs on a customer’s horse: “starting bout 8 hours after I give the injection and for about 36 hours afterwards both my horses act like they are heavily sedated, can barely walk.  Could I have a bad bottle of medicine, I’m afraid to give it anymore since this has happened three times.” Commenting on this complaint, Robinson wrote simply, “here is another one.”

In a separate conspiracy, from at least in or about February, 2018, through at least in or about November, 2019, Izhaki conspired with others to transport, sell, and deliver, tens of thousands of dollars of erythropoietin, a “blood builder” drug intended to increase a horse’s racing performance, which had been smuggled into the country from Mexico. This drug was covertly transported into the U.S. and sold by Izhaki, who believed it would be used by racehorse trainers to illicitly improve their horses’ race performance. Izhaki also offered for sale amphetamines, and a substance that Izhaki referred to as “the Devil,” which Izhaki claimed would mask the presence of potent drugs in a human or animal’s body.

The defendants are among 27 individuals charged in a series of Indictments arising from an investigation of a widespread scheme by racehorse trainers, veterinarians, PED distributors, and others to manufacture, distribute, and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs and to secretly administer those PEDs to racehorses competing at all levels of professional horseracing. By evading PED prohibitions and deceiving regulators and horse racing officials, participants in these schemes sought to improve race performance and obtain prize money from racetracks, all to the detriment and risk of the health and well-being of the racehorses.

Robinson, 46, of Tampa, Fl., and Izhaki, 45, of Manalapan, N.J, each pled guilty to one count of conspiring to unlawfully introduce and receive with the intent to redistribute for pay or otherwise adulterated and misbranded drugs in interstate commerce, and to misbrand drugs in interstate commerce. This offense carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. Any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

Strauss praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI New York Office’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force and its support of the Bureau’s Integrity in Sports and Gaming Initiative. Strauss also thanked the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, the New York State Police, and the New York City Police Department for their support of this investigation, and the Food and Drug Administration and Drug Enforcement Administration for their assistance and expertise.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Money Laundering and Transnational Criminal Enterprises Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Sarah Mortazavi, Benet J. Kearney, and Andrew C. Adams are in charge of the prosecution.

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