FBI Indictments | Horse Racing Free Tips

Veterinarian Grasso Sentenced to 50 Months

Louis Grasso, a veterinarian who worked in the harness racing industry and was one of more than two dozen individuals indicted in 2020 for their role in a horse doping ring, has been sentenced to 50 months in prison and two years of supervised release. The sentence was handed down Tuesday by U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in a lower Manhattan courtroom.

Grasso was also ordered to pay a forfeiture totaling $412,442.62 and restitution in the amount of $47,656,576. He must surrender to authorities on January 24, 2023, at which time he will enter prison.

Grasso was charged with one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy, a felony. He faced a maximum sentence of five years. Several other defendants in the doping case that have pled guilty received sentences in the neighborhood of three years. That Castel gave Grasso more than four years seems to reflect the severity of the charges against him.

The prosecution had maintained that Grasso's doping led to corrupt trainers collecting over $47 million in ill-gotten purse winnings.

In May, when Grasso entered a guilty plea, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District Court issued a press release in which U.S. Attorney Damian Williams commented on the Grasso plea as well as the guilty plea entered by harness trainer Richard Banca. Banca was sentenced to 30 months.

“Grasso and Banca represent the corruption and greed of those in the racehorse industry looking to win at any cost,” Williams said. “In peddling illegal drugs and selling prescriptions to corrupt trainers, Louis Grasso abdicated his responsibilities as a medical professional to ensure the safety and health of the racehorses he 'treated.' By injecting horses with unnecessary and, at times, unknown drugs, Grasso risked the lives and welfare of the animals under his care, all in service of helping corrupt racehorse trainers like Banca line their pockets through fraud. These latest convictions demonstrate the commitment of this Office and of our partners at the FBI to hold accountable individuals seeking to profit from animal abuse and deceit.”

In the indictment of Grasso, the government portrayed him as a central figure in a scheme to manufacture, distribute and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs which were administered to horses. The government charged that Grasso and others delivered and received “at least thousands” of units of PEDs issued by pharmacies pursuant to invalid prescriptions. Banca was among his customers.

According to the indictment, Grasso was also manufacturing and/or selling “epogen,” pain shots of joint blocks, bronchodilators and a substance called “red acid.” Red acid is believed to reduce inflammation in joints.

It appears that Grasso's doping may have been restricted to harness racing as the indictment does not mention any illegal activities that involved Thoroughbred racing.

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Barred Trainer Tannuzzo Poised to Change Plea in Doping Case

The barred trainer Michael Tannuzzo appears poised to join the parade of indicted defendants in the 2020 racehorse doping conspiracy case who have changed their pleas to guilty in order to keep felony charges against them from getting decided at trial.

On Tuesday a federal judge granted Tannuzzo a swift July 7 hearing to explain his reasons for wanting to change his initial “not guilty” plea.

Tannuzzo, 50, who had 11 horses under his care and had been racing at Aqueduct at the time of his March 9, 2020, arrest, made headlines 24 hours later by steadfastly declaring his innocence and maintaining that the New York State Gaming Commission shouldn't have suspended his license after learning he had been booked by the feds on two felony charges related to conspiracies and drug misbranding.

Tannuzzo told Daily Racing Form at that time that he was being targeted by the feds because his “best friend” was the trainer and high-profile defendant Jorge Navarro. His two conspiracy charges were related to Tannuzzo picking up a package of purported performance-enhancing drugs from Navarro's residence and delivering it to him at Monmouth Park. Tannuzzo said that equated to “guilt by association.”

But since Tannuzzo made those initial statements in the press nearly 2 1/2 years ago, Navarro has admitted to doping his horses, changed his own plea to guilty, and is currently serving a five-year prison sentence. Tannuzzo's trial had been set to start Sept. 12.

According to a trove of wiretapped calls made public by federal prosecutors, on March 3, 2019, Navarro and Tannuzzo discussed modeling a doping program based on one Navarro had used on his elite-level stakes sprinter, X Y Jet.

A key takeaway from this discussion is that neither trainer seems sure of the name of the substance that would be administered.

Navarro: What I'm going to do is tap his ankles, put him in a series every week with SGF. I'm just trying [to get] my vet to give me a good price, man, because I want to [expletive] tap every week.

Tannuzzo: You're going to tap him every week?

Navarro: Yeah, with SGF. That's what I did with X Y Jet. I'm going to call my vet up north, my surgeon, to see how he did it to X Y Jet and that's it. Don't worry man, you're in good hands. Don't worry.

Tannuzzo: You're talking about the HGF, not the SGF.

Navarro: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. The SGF whatever. The thing that you sent me the syringe.

Tannuzzo: Yeah.

Navarro: Yeah, yeah. And [this undisclosed horse] is getting one of those SGF-1000 whatever. He's getting one today.

Within 10 months of that conversation, X Y Jet would die suddenly under Navarro's care, allegedly from cardiac distress that has never been fully documented or explained.

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Veterinarian Louis Grasso Enters Guilty Plea in Doping Case

Louis Grasso, a veterinarian who served the harness racing industry and who was one of 29 individuals indicted in March of 2020 for his role in a racehorse doping ring, entered a guilty plea in federal court Wednesday before U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel. He was charged with one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy, a felony, and could face as much as five years in prison.

The prosecution charged that Grasso's doping led to corrupt trainers collecting over $47 million in “ill-gotten purse winnings.”
He will be sentenced Sept. 6.

The plea was announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District Court, which, in a press release, took the occasion to also comment on a guilty plea entered last month from harness trainer Richard Banca.

“Grasso and Banca represent the corruption and greed of those in the racehorse industry looking to win at any cost,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “In peddling illegal drugs and selling prescriptions to corrupt trainers, Louis Grasso abdicated his responsibilities as a medical professional to ensure the safety and health of the racehorses he 'treated.' By injecting horses with unnecessary and, at times, unknown drugs, Grasso risked the lives and welfare of the animals under his care, all in service of helping corrupt racehorse trainers like Banca line their pockets through fraud. These latest convictions demonstrate the commitment of this Office and of our partners at the FBI to hold accountable individuals seeking to profit from animal abuse and deceit.”

According to the indictment, Grasso was manufacturing and/or selling “epogen,” pain shots of joint blocks, bronchodilators and a substance called “red acid.” Red acid is believed to reduce inflammation in joints.

It appears that Grasso's doping may have been restricted to harness racing as the indictment does not mention any illegal activities that involved Thoroughbred racing.

Grasso was among four individuals involved with harness racing included in an indictment that also listed trainers Conor Flynn, Donato Poliseno and Thomas Guido III. Poliseno and Guido are scheduled to be tried June 27. Flynn has cooperated with the government and recently testified against Lisa Gianelli, who was convicted of misbranding and drug adulteration.

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Fishman Adds Lawyer Known for Defending Controversial Clients

An attorney who has been in the headlines for defending high-profile clients such as the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted NXIVM “sex cult” leader Keith Raniere, and the convicted Mexican drug lord and murderer Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera on Monday got added to the legal team for Seth Fishman, the indicted Florida veterinarian whose trial in the nationwide racehorse doping conspiracy case begins Jan. 19.

The New York-based lawyer Marc Fernich, who has extensive experience defending clients in the United States District Court (Southern District of New York) venue where Fishman's trial will commence, announced his appearance as co-counsel with a Jan. 10 filing in that court.

Fishman is charged with two felony counts related to drug alteration, misbranding, and conspiring to defraud the government.

Last month, Fishman was called before Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil to answer allegations made by prosecutors that he was still selling purportedly performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) even as he prepared to face a trial related to the sale of many of those same substances. At a bail revocation hearing, Fishman was ordered to surrender all of the substances stored at his Boca Raton business, but the judge stopped short of revoking his pre-trial release privileges.

Fernich, according to the bio on his firm's website, specializes in the study of legal precedents in intense regulatory environments. This expertise “enables Fernich to construct subtle, novel and creative arguments that other attorneys may miss” and it centers on “sophisticated appeals and legal motions that can toss charges at the trial level or pave the way for future appeals.”

Lisa Giannelli, whom the feds allege ran an online sales business called Equestology that was closely related to Fishman's venture, will also go on trial at the same time as Fishman.

Six of 27 defendants named in the original indictment have now been sentenced after pleading guilty to charges in the federal government's prosecution of an alleged “corrupt scheme” to manufacture, mislabel, rebrand, distribute, and administer PEDs to racehorses all across America and in international races.

Giannelli and Fishman will be the first to push their cases to a trial. The indicted former trainer Jason Servis, the highest-profile of the remaining defendants, is in a third trial grouping that does not yet have an assigned court date.

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