Over the last 40 years, Sipp has faced allegations involving insurance scams and dead horses, animal neglect cases, race-fixing stings and regulatory malfeasance. Not all the accusations against him have stuck.

Since the mid 1990s, Sipp has been barred from applying for a racing license in New Jersey due to swirling suspicions of fraudulent practices. So he moved his tack to more welcoming pastures.

For the past few years, the trainer has been dogged by allegations he's knowingly funneled his horses into the slaughter pipeline. Proving these allegations has been trickier, exposing gaping holes in racing's aftercare safety-net.

“There's nothing wrong with auctions,” Sipp told the TDN, when asked of the risks that kill buyers pose. “I haven't done anything wrong in the eyes of Mountaineer,” he added, highlighting the West Virginian track where he currently races.

As Sipp sees it, he's been martyred at the court of public opinion. “Unfortunately, with the internet, anybody can say anything about anybody,” Sipp said. “Look at the way they bash Donald Trump.”

In the early 1980s, Sipp sent out nearly 300 victories in one year. So far this year, he's had just eight. At 78, Sipp realistically has few remaining years to add to his career haul of 2,891 wins. Then earlier this week, Churchill Downs temporarily barred him from racing and training at Presque Isle and its other tracks. The faucet's getting tighter.

Many wonder why it wasn't completely turned off years ago.

“I didn't throw him under the bus”

As long ago as the early 1980s, the name Sipp was mired in ignominy.

In 1993, Bill Finley reported in the NY Daily News how a National Association of Racing Commissioners report detailed 83 rulings against Sipp over a 12-year period, some for minor infractions, though some major, including a 60-day suspension for a lidocaine positive. The report was published in 1982.

Sipp is believed to have collected more violations than any other trainer in the history of racing up to that point, wrote Finley.

One of the more egregious incidents occurred on August 15, 1980, when Sipp allegedly forged a scratch card on another trainer's horse, forcing that horse to be withdrawn–a possible criminal offense.

According to Finley's reporting, Sipp avoided criminal charges by helping prosecutors in a sting operation called “Operation Glue,” in which Sipp and a cadre of New Jersey State Police officers posing as owners offered jockeys bribes to pull horses in a race.

Four jockeys–journeymen riders struggling to make ends meet–eventually took the bait, but the case fell apart in trial. As Finley reported, the nature of the sting left a nasty after-taste among many in the industry, including one of the jockeys charged, Gilfredo Gonzalez.

“What he has done to people and what he has done to animals…he is a disgrace,” said Gonzalez, at the time, about Sipp. “We are all human beings and deserve a second chance, but he has had more chances than a cat.”

Sipp eventually served a 60-day suspension for the forged scratch. But the trainer's run-ins with the law weren't over.

In 1984 as Christmas loomed large, Sipp was indicted by a grand jury in New Jersey on charges of inflating insurance claims on nine horses who died in his care over a four-year period.

As a Burlington County Prosecutor's Office statement reportedly read at the time, “in each of the nine claims, the horses died within three days to five months of the insurance application.”

Per Finley's reporting, the investigation allegedly exceeded the scope of just nine horses. Finley cites an affidavit written by an attorney on behalf of jockey John D'Agusto, in which it's written:

“The investigation had been initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and centered around the allegation that Mr. Sipp had killed 41 horses in an insurance fraud scheme.”

Sipp eventually pled guilty to the lesser charges of witness tampering, and on Aug. 1, 1986, was fined $7,500 and sentenced to five-years probation. Not everyone, it appears, agreed with the final sentencing.

Gregg Shivers, the assistant Burlington County prosecutor at the time, reportedly said that his office could have easily proven the earlier charges, but that the plea bargain was driven in part by the anticipated cost of the trial, expected to be one of the most expensive in Burlington County history.

One constant throughout Sipp's troubles is his insistence on innocence. At the time of his 1986 sentencing for witness tampering he denied wrongdoing, arguing that his guilty plea was a result of entrapment.

“People believe what they've read about me,” he told Finley at the time. “I know within my own conscience that I didn't kill any horses and I'm the only person I have to live with.”

To this day, Sipp insists he has a guilt-free conscience. He told the TDN that his suspension for the forged scratch, for example, was an instance of him falling on his sword to protect another.

“We were playing a joke on a guy, and I took the heat for that,” Sipp told the TDN. “The person that actually was involved in that was one of the racing officials, and I didn't throw him under the bus.”

Over the years, Sipp hasn't faced scrutiny only for his racing infractions. Trouble and suspicion have similarly plagued Animal Kingdom, his former 32-acre zoo and pet store in Burlington, N.J., one that over the years housed tropical birds, tigers, lions, and giraffes.

“Deceptive business practices”

By the time of Finley's 1993 NY Daily News article, tragedy had already struck Animal Kingdom when a drunk was gored to death by one of the zoo's bulls. Sipp reportedly faced no charges for the incident.

A 2005 Boston Globe article, however, details how a Burlington County grand jury indicted Sipp in 1990 on charges of “deceptive business practices and attempted theft by deception.”

According to the Globe, Sipp in 1988 allegedly staged a burglary at his pet store of two exotic breeding birds to collect an insurance pay-out. According to Finley's reporting, the case went to trial and he was found not guilty.

The year 2011 was a terrible one for Sipp both personally and professionally.

In April of 2011, Sipp's wife, 43-year-old Bridget, died in a fire at the zoo, running back into a burning building to save her mother, who had already been pulled free.

In October of that same year, another fire tore through the zoo. According to a subsequent Philadelphia Inquirer article, the blaze killed 24 animals, including a mother and baby giraffe. Both fires were ruled accidents.

The same article, however, reports how by that time–January of 2013–Sipp was under investigation by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for alleged animal welfare violations.

According to the Inquirer, citations stemmed all the way back to 2002, when five emaciated giraffes reportedly died at the zoo.

USDA inspectors, the Inquirer notes, were also looking into other more contemporary neglect allegations, including the euthanasia of both an adult hyena with a foot wound and a giraffe that had survived the 2011 fire, along with an ailing lemur found dead in its cage.

By that time, Sipp had amassed more than 200 violations over 12 years, “many for animal neglect and facility maintenance issues,” the Inquirer reported.

Per a subsequent article in nj.com, Sipp reportedly cancelled his license to exhibit animals in 2014.

The same 2014 nj.com article also notes how the USDA had issued Sipp only two official letters of warning and a $469 fine. These letters were reportedly issued in 1995 and 2011, the latter just days before the second fire.

TDN reached out to the USDA to verify the details in these news articles. “I will say that we usually shelve these documents after three years,” wrote a USDA spokesperson, in an email.

As such, the TDN has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the USDA for a record of all citations Sipp received for his operations at Animal Kingdom.

Sipp, however, maintains his innocence from all nefarious events at the zoo.

He said he has no recollection of the five emaciated giraffes perishing in 2002, as reported by the Inquirer. “I don't know where you got this information from, but that's not true,” he said.

Sipp also said that from about 1996 onwards, he was busy with his work as a racehorse trainer and wasn't responsible for the day-to-day running of the zoo.

“My wife ran the zoo and she hired a curator and we had staff…that handled everything,” he said. By the time of certain citations that occurred after the second fire, “I didn't own the zoo at the time. I had sold it,” he added.

According to the 2013 Philadelphia Inquirer article, Christopher Basner and his wife, Anne Butler, briefly took over the zoo in October of 2012, but terminated a two-year contract after just three weeks.

According to the Inquirer, the zoo was back in Sipp's charge when one of the giraffes had to be euthanized “after it was found in the barn too weak to stand.” Sipp was reportedly cited for that incident for failing to provide veterinary care.

“A tawdry image of that industry”

By 2009, Sipp, who had long before muscled his way back into the training ranks, was posting decent returns. That year, his horses won 73 races and amassed more than $650,000 in earnings. But his notoriety had hardly waned.

“In the best-case scenario, he tampered with a witness and is not the type of person who should ever be allowed to take part in a sport that involves gambling and where the integrity of the product is tantamount,” wrote Finley, for ESPN, in 2009.

“In the worst-case scenario, he killed horses for personal gain,” Finley added. “No reasonable person could argue that Sipp should ever have been allowed to race again.”

Some authorities evidently agreed with Finley, for Sipp's attempts to get licensed and to race over the years have resembled a game of whack-a-mole. Take the years following 1993, when his probation on charges of witness tampering had ended and he sought a return to the sport.

While the Pennsylvania State Horse Racing Commission initially granted Sipp a license, Philadelphia Park and Penn National were less welcoming, the latter track steadfast in refusing Sipp access to the facility.

The matter went to court in 1994, when a Commonwealth Court judge upheld the tracks' bans which were based, the Globe reported, on the trainer's history of violations.

As per the Globe, “Judge James Gardner Colins wrote in his 15-page decision, 'a reasonable mind could readily conclude that Sipp's association with horse racing not only taints the image of that industry but also fosters a tawdry image of that industry.'”

Early in 2013, when Sipp attempted to once again enter horses at both Penn National and Parx Racing, both facilities reportedly refused his entries. The trainer subsequently appealed, but the Pennsylvania racing commission upheld the bans.

Whereas in Pennsylvania Sipp's excommunication hasn't been an absolute, that's not the case in New Jersey.

In 1995, the New Jersey Racing Commission (NJRC) asked the state Office of Administrative Law to conduct a hearing into allegations of Sipp's fraudulent racing practices.

In a disposition with the NJRC, Sipp agreed that he “will never apply for any form of racing license in New Jersey, or engage in any activities requiring licensure by the New Jersey Racing Commission,” wrote Leland Moore, a spokesperson for the N.J. attorney general's office, in an email to TDN.

According to Moore, the NJRC has not issued a license to Sipp since. But not all the sport's higher-ups have maintained such a hard-line stance against the trainer.

“There's nothing in the rule book that keeps him from getting a license because he has a past,” Suffolk Downs chief of stewards Bill Keene, told the Boston Globe, back in 2005.

Over the past few years, other racing commissions and racetracks have also routinely welcomed the trainer, despite Sipp's checkered regulatory history continuing to grow.

According to the Thoroughbredrulings website, Sipp has been issued 47 citations since the start of 2005, the vast majority for relatively minor infractions.

Sipp has been found guilty of several medication violations during that time, including for a pre-race TCO2 test at Beulah Park in December of 2008, a Flunixin positive at Presque Isle in June of 2013, a Dexamethasone positive at Mountaineer in August of 2017, and a Phenylbutazone positive at Presque Isle in September of 2020.

The most egregious violation concerned an Ohio State Racing Commission (OSRC) search of Sipp's barn at Thistledown on Aug. 30, 2013.

According to Thoroughbredrulings, the search revealed the following: One apparently used syringe with the needle attached, four unused needles in their packaging, two needles that appeared to have already been used, one opened bottle of Iron Hydrogenated Dextran Injection (Hematinic), one unopened bottle of Iron Hydrogenated Dextran Injection (Hematinic), one opened bottle of Super B Complex Injection (Vedco), and one unopened bottle of Super B Complex Injection (Vedco).

In a ruling dated Aug. 31, 2013, Sipp reached an agreement with the commission. He was suspended five months and fined $500.

The TDN contacted current OSRC executive director, Chris Dragone, to confirm the details. Dragone said that Sipp's file contained information confirming the suspension and fine, but little else about that particular incident.

Once again, Sipp considers himself blameless. Sipp's assistant, he said, had purchased the vitamins from an on-track veterinarian to be used on his own horse, but had mistakenly stored the materials in Sipp's truck, the focus of the search.

“It was my truck he was using, and I knew nothing about him buying vitamins for the horse,” said Sipp. When asked about the iron supplement and syringes, “That was his, not mine,” Sipp replied.

“There's the person you ought to be going after”

Which leads to the past few weeks, and a flurry of activity on social media raising serious ethical questions of Sipp's treatment of three of his trainees who all raced within just four days of each other in late July at Mountaineer Park and Presque Isle.

On July 24, the 7-year-old mare, Come on City (Wiener Walzer) finished down the field in a $4,000 claimer at Mountaineer Park.

Back in 2020, Come on City was sold to Sipp at the Keeneland January sale for $1,500. According to Sue Kenny, former racing secretary for trainer Graham Motion, she had subsequently followed the mare's career due to welfare concerns under Sipp's charge.

According to Kenny, she had asked a Mountaineer trainer to place a claim for Come on City on July 24 on behalf of an elderly couple who wished to retire the mare. The state vet subsequently voided the claim, and so the trainer purchased the mare privately from Sipp for the same price as the claiming tag, said Kenny.

By the time Come on City arrived on Aug. 3 at The Winter Farm in Summerfield, North Carolina, however, the mare was suffering a severe hock infection stemming from multiple open wounds, said the farm's executive director, Holly Carter.

Sipp told TDN that the horse had also been shipped to Presque Isle and another facility beefore Winter Farm, suggesting that the injuries occurred during that period.

According to Carter, the veterinarians who looked at the mare on Aug. 3, “felt like the infection had been there for about two weeks, just by the heat of the swelling and the gunk. It wasn't a fresh wound. That's why we think she raced on it.”

Between the severe hock infection and osselets–chronic degeneration of the fetlock–in the horse's left front ankle, Come on City will likely never be rehomed as a sport horse, said Carter.

Three days after Come on City ran, the 6-year-old mare, Tailadios (Adios Charlie) failed to finish a $6,250 claimer at Presque Isle.

Tailadios' breeder, Jean White, a Florida-based veterinarian, said she was alerted on Aug. 11 via Facebook how Tailadois was in a facility in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, that markets itself as “finding the slaughter bound horses” in order to secure them “alternative homes.” White subsequently purchased Tailadios from the facility, she said.

Sipp said he sold the horse at a public auction in Ohio called “Smokey Lane” for $950. The person who purchased Tailadios, Sipp added, “is an unscrupulous person” who needs investigating.

“The guy that put her up for ransom, why didn't Churchill Downs contact him? There's the person you ought to be going after,” Sipp said.

“She's thin–not life-threateningly so–but she's got horrible looking ankles,” White said, of Tailadios' condition, adding that the mare is currently undergoing a full veterinary examination while in quarantine.

The same day Tailadios failed to make it past the finish line at Presque Isle, the 8-year-old mare Little Christy (Silent Name) suffered an even worse indignity at Mountaineer Park.

According to Equibase, Little Christy–who cost Sipp $3,500 at the Keeneland January Sale of 2020–was having her third start in three weeks.

In her very final race, Equibase writes, Little Christy “took a bad step and fell in mid stretch being euthanised on the track.”

“I cannot comment on consideration of future permit applications”

On Tuesday, Churchill Downs Incorporated (CDI), which owns Presque Isle, announced that it had temporarily suspended Sipp, along with “any trainer either directly or indirectly employed by him,” from racing and stabling at all CDI-owned racetracks until further notice.

“The suspension is a result of concerns over the care and treatment of horses in the best interest of racing to protect the safety and integrity of the sport and its participants,” the statement read.

TDN reached out to James Colvin, the director of racing at Mountaineer, about the recent scrutiny on Sipp.

“I have no information for you to discuss on Burton Sipp, the WV Racing Commission has licensed Mr. Sipp and has also investigated him and to my knowledge have found no wrongdoing as to date,” Colvin wrote.

In 2010, the track instituted a policy barring trainers who sold horses at an Ohio sale frequented by known kill buyers. Colvin failed to respond to follow-up questions, including about the track's current policy on horses sold to slaughter.

In answer to a series of email questions, West Virginia Racing Commission executive director, Joe Moore, wrote that the commission's investigations into Sipp have led to “no actionable violations.”

According to Moore, the commission considers “rule violations in all racing jurisdictions as reported in the ARCI database, as well as criminal convictions,” when determining permit application approval, but that no rulings reported to ARCI have prohibited Sipp's licensure in West Virginia.

“Mr. Sipp is currently licensed by the West Virginia Racing Commission,” Moore wrote. “I cannot comment on consideration of future permit applications,” he added.

And where does the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) fit into the equation?

Lisa Lazarus, CEO of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, said that currently, the law as written does not give the HISA Authority an “obvious way” to hold responsible parties accountable for horses that end up in the slaughter pipeline.

However, “we started looking more deeply into how we can actually address this,” Lazarus said.

At the same time, said Lazarus, the law “does give us broad authority over equine welfare, and over making sure that horses are protected,” she said, adding that HISA is able to take measures against “actions and conduct that interfere with horse welfare.”

The post The “Tawdry” Tale of Burton Sipp appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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“At this time the government rests its case,” prosecutor Anden Chow told U.S. District Court Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil on the trial's eighth day.

A short time later, the defense rested their case without calling any witnesses or putting the accused veterinarian on the stand to testify.

Without the jury present in the Manhattan courtroom, Vyskocil told Fishman he had a right to testify, but was under no obligation.

“So, it's your decision not to testify Dr. Fishman?” the judge asked.

“That is correct,” Fishman said.

“And it's your decision alone not to testify?”

“That is correct,” Fishman said.

The conclusion of testimony sets the stage for the next phase of the trial: closing arguments followed by jury deliberations after the judge issues instructions on the law. Eight women and four men comprise the jury.

Vyskocil told both sides that summations would commence Jan. 31.

Fishman, 50, was one of 27 horse racing insiders arrested in March 2020 in the biggest horse doping bust in U.S. history. Those charged included two prominent trainers, Jason Servis, who is awaiting trial, and Jorge Navarro, who pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison. Fishman is the first to go to trial in the case.

Prosecutors have accused Fishman of manufacturing illegal performance-enhancing drugs that harness and Thoroughbred trainers, including Navarro, administered to their horses to win lucrative purses and enhance their reputation. Prosecutors say those charged acted without regard to horse welfare, risking breakdowns and death.

Prosecutors allege that Fishman was especially sought after because he claimed that his products wouldn't appear in customary post-race testing.

Fishman is charged with two counts of conspiring to violate adulteration and misbranding laws. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.

He went on trial Jan. 19 with Lisa Giannelli, who worked with him for 18 years. Vyskocil granted her a mistrial after her lawyer tested positive for COVID-19 Jan. 24.

Fishman contends that he carried out the accused activities in the good faith belief that he was practicing veterinary medicine.

On Friday, prosecutors set up a table in front of the jury box with dozens of boxes and bins containing vials of substances worth tens of thousands of dollars, seized at the time of Fishman's initial arrest in 2019. Prosecutors say the vials contained PEDs.

Additionally, Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Jarrett Concannon testified that during a search of Fishman's business in South Florida last month, he took photos of the same products stored on shelves.

Prosecutors say the search showed Fishman was in possession of PEDs in violation of his bail conditions.

The government's witnesses were a varied assortment. They included a woman who worked for Fishman and his Equestology business in South Florida for five years and testified after agreeing to a non-prosecution agreement with prosecutors.

They also included Ross Cohen, a defendant in March 2020 indictments. He agreed to flip as part of a cooperation deal with the feds.

Also testifying were two current trainers, Adrienne Hall who has small stable of harness horses in Florida, and Jamen Davidovich, who ran principally in Ohio in 2021 and has a start this year in New York.

Each testified Fishman supplied them with PEDs for their horses after reaching out to the veterinarian a few years ago.

Jurors also heard testimony from three FBI agents and two experts in veterinary medicine.

As part of their case, prosecutors played excerpts from more than two dozen wiretaps that captured Fishman discussing horse doping and bragging that his products weren't “testable.”

“Don't kid yourself,” Fishman is heard saying to an unidentified male individual on the other end of the line in a wiretap from Apr. 15, 2019. “If you're giving something to a horse to make it better, and you're not supposed to do that, that's doping. You know, whether or not it's testable that's another story.”

The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.

The post Fishman Trial Enters Homestretch appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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On the call with Fishman was an unidentified individual who wants to know more about the drugs.

“But it's not doping, yeah?” that person asks, according to a transcript of the April 5, 2019, intercepted call.

“Of course, it's doping. The question is, is it testable doping?” Fishman responds according to a transcript.

“Ah test,” says the individual.

“No, no, no, what I'm trying to say is, any time you give something to a horse, that's doping,” Fishman responds. “Whether or not they test for it is another story. This is stuff people are using all the time, so no, they're not testing for it. You know, but don't kid yourself. If you're giving something to a horse to make it better and you're not supposed to do that.”

“Yeah sure,” the individual says.

“That's doping,” Fishman says in response. “You know, whether or not it's testable, that's a different story.”

The conversation began with Fishman asking the caller about his plans to purchase more “stuff.”

Fishman then says, “You know, I have people that set world records using stuff, and then their competition uses the same stuff and the horse doesn't even show up to the track.”

The wiretap was played in court on the fifth day of the trial as testimony resumed after a day's interruption. On Jan. 24, Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil declared a mistrial in the case of Fishman co-defendant Lisa Giannelli. Giannelli's attorney tested positive for COVID-19 before court on Monday, warranting the mistrial.

As the day began Tuesday, Vyskocil announced a ruling rejecting a motion for a mistrial by Fishman's attorneys. They moved for a mistrial because of the positive COVID-19 test they believed upset the flow of the trial and because of remarks the attorney for Giannelli made during openings statements last week that they said could prejudice the jury against their client.

That attorney, Louis Fasulo, had described his client as the “proverbial sheep” to Fishman's “sheep master.”

Vyskocil countered that Fishman had not been prejudiced. “Dr. Fishman has received a fair trial so far and will continue to receive a fair trial,” Vyskocil said.

Fishman was one of more than two dozen members of the horse racing community charged in sweeping indictments in March 2020 with conspiring to dope horses at race tracks across the country with illicit performance-enhancing drugs that wouldn't show up in post-race testing. Those charged included top trainers Jason Servis, who awaits trial, and Jorge Navarro, who pleaded guilty to conspiring with others to dope horses and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Fishman is charged with two counts of conspiring to violate drug adulteration and misbranding laws. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison if convicted.

As part of their case, prosecutors allege Fishman accepted tens of thousands of dollars from Navarro in exchange for untestable drugs.

On Tuesday, prosecutors called Dr. Jean Bowman, veterinary medical officer in the division of surveillance for the FDA, as a government expert witness.

During her testimony, prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi introduced into evidence photos taken on the day of Navarro's arrest in 2020 that showed him in possession at his Florida home of four alleged PEDs that came from Fishman.

Mortazavi drilled down on those drugs, named BB3. The indictment described BB3 as a customized “blood building” PED that when combined with intense physical exertion thicken a horse's blood. A horse doped with BB3 ran the risk of a heart attack, the indictment said.

The photo of BB3 seized by the FBI from the Navarro residence shows only the product's name on the bottle.

Bowman testified that BB3 had not been approved by the FDA and that she could find no studies in an FDA database about BB3 and its effectiveness and safety to horses.

Bowman also told the jury that the label on the BB3 bottle should have contained more information to pass muster with the FDA. She said the label should have contained the name of the prescribing veterinarian, how and when it should be administered, the identity of the manufacturer, and what precautions should be taken before administering it.

The doctor testified that BB3 and the other drugs Fishman sold should only be prescribed after a physical examination of the animal.

Prosecutors contend Fishman never did that before shipping his PEDs to buyers.

At one point during questioning, Mortazavi had Bowman read from an email Fishman sent to Giannelli on Jan. 5, 2019, that contained a list of drugs available from Fishman's South Florida business Equestology.

“BB3: would only let trusted clients have this,” Bowman quoted the email as saying.

Fishman's lawyers Maurice Sercarz and Marc Fernich will have an opportunity to cross-examine the FDA expert when the trial resumes Jan. 26.

The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.

The post ‘Of Course, It’s Doping’: Fishman Trials Focuses On Wiretaps, FDA Expert appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The entire morning and most of the afternoon featured a second day of testimony from a woman who worked for Fishman at his Florida business Equestology for five years.

Courtney Adams, 34, testifying from Florida via video conference, told jurors that Fishman and Equestology were all about “testability.” That meant creating “product” that couldn't be detected in post-race testing by horse racing authorities, she said.

During her testimony in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors showed an email in which a veterinarian who was a client of Equestology asked about one of the products, equine growth hormone, and whether it was testable.

“That was our biggest selling point, that he specialized in making product that wasn't testable,” Adams testified, referring to Fishman.

The witness, who had been an Equestology office manager and then a sales rep, said that Fishman told her there was a risk of regulators coming up with a test to detect the substance. If that happened, Fishman said he would have to create another product that would be undetectable, she said.

“That was the whole point of that product to be not testable,” Adams testified.

Fishman and Giannelli face conspiracy charges in a wide-ranging scheme to dope horses with performance-enhancing drugs to boost the treated horses' chances of winning races. Those charged include prominent trainer Jason Servis, who has maintained a not guilty plea and is awaiting trial. Others, such as trainer Jorge Navarro, have pled guilty and been sentenced.

Prosecutors say the accused were motivated by greed to win races and acted without regard to the welfare and safety of horses.

While on the stand, Adams admitted helping to mislabel products that Fishman created for clients around the country and in the United Arab Emirates. She said she also shipped vials of product without any labels.

Under questioning by prosecutor Andrew Adams, the witness said that she knew “in general terms” that some of those who purchased Fishman's drugs were horse trainers.

“He would discuss why they wanted them and why they were being used by them,” she testified.

“And did he say why they were being used by trainers?” the prosecutor asked.

“He said they were being used because they were untestable,” Adams replied.

The jury also heard the witness cite the names of some of the drugs Equestology sold.

Those products included Endurance, Bleeder, Hormone Therapy Pack, HP Bleeder Plus, and PSDS.

Adams testified that PSDS stood for Pain Shot Double Strength, describing it as a “double strength product for pain.”

She indicated she didn't know what the other substances were for.

Adams said she stopped working for Equestology in 2017.

“I was over it to be honest,” Adams testified. “I didn't want to do it anymore.”

As she left, Fishman asked her not to discuss their business with anyone, Adams noted.

“I said okay,” she said.

She said in 2018 investigators with the Food and Drug Administration approached her to ask about Fishman. She said she wasn't comfortable talking to them without a lawyer.

After Fishman, Giannelli, Servis, and about two dozen others connected to horse racing were indicted in March 2020 in the doping case, Adams said a friend sent her a link with a story about the arrests.

She said after reading it she contacted law enforcement.

“I read the story, and I realized they didn't have the whole story, and I felt obliged to give it to them,” Adams told the jury.

She said as a result of the information she provided, government lawyers offered her a non-prosecution agreement.

During cross-examination, Fishman's attorney Maurice Sercarz sought to suggest that Adams was motivated to contact law enforcement out of personal animosity against Fishman.

She admitted that before she left Equestology, Fishman had accused her of theft and using Equestology funds to purchase personal items.

She told Sercarz she was upset about those accusations “because they were false.”

During his cross-examination, Giannelli's attorney, Louis Fasulo, questioned Adams about whether she would work at a place that put horses in danger.

No was her response.

Adams also said she didn't think she was breaking the law when labeling products she said were mislabeled.

Toward the end of the day, Long Island retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Angela Jett took the stand to read from notes of an interview she conducted with Fishman in 2010.

Jett said she had interviewed Fishman as a potential government witness in a $190 million securities fraud case. That case involved a magnate named David Brooks and a body-armor company he owned on Long Island. Fishman worked for Brooks, an owner of Standardbred racehorses that competed in New York and elsewhere.

According to the notes, Fishman told Jett that he had supplied performance-enhancing drugs to Brooks, who administered them to horses before racing.

Brooks was found guilty in 2010 of charges connected to the fraud and died in prison while serving a 17-year prison sentence.

Under cross-examination by Sercarz, Jett acknowledged that her notes don't say whether Fishman learned of the doping at the time it occurred or “after the fact.”

He also pointed out that Jett's notes show that when Brooks asked Fishman to dope a horse, Fishman refused.

Fishman's admissions to Jett never led to charges.

The trial resumes Jan. 24.

The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.

The post Horse-Doping Trial: Former Fishman Employee Cites Non-Testable Products appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the plaintiffs may file a subsequent suit on the same grounds.
Despite the allegations against Allard, he had been cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice to train horses at a South Florida training center, as long as the horses under his care were not preparing to race. On Mar. 6, Gural announced that any owners who had horses with Allard would be banned at his tracks and their horses would be ineligible to race there. He also announced a ban against anyone who continued to have horses in partnership with the eight owners.

“To learn that people actually give this guy horses to train after what was discovered by the Federal investigation boggles the mind,” Gural said at the time. The owners, Kap Singh, Lawrence Dumain, Ira Wallach, Brian Wallach, Yves Sarrazin, Erin Hill, Bruce Soulsby and Allen Weisenberg filed suit, alleging violations of federal antitrust laws and state competition laws. The group alleged that Gural was attempting to “sanitize their illegal actions by attempting to smear Plaintiffs with the misdeeds of Rene Allard.”

United States District Judge Lawrence Khan disagreed, upholding the ban. “Judge Kahn clearly saw that this antitrust theory has no legs and did the right thing by dismissing the whole case,” Gural said in a statement. “This lawsuit and its outcome have only reinforced my resolve to purge PEDs from our industry even if it means defending baseless lawsuits like this or initiating my own legal actions against those who pose obstacles to our efforts, should I have to. Our industry requires, in my view, owners to be beyond reproach and held accountable for the training decisions they make.”

More so than any other track owner or manager in either Harness or Thoroughbred racing, Gural has been vigilant in his efforts to keep alleged dopers out of his tracks. Several of the Harness horsemen who were indicted in March, 2020 for their alleged involvement in a widespread scheme to dope racehorses had already been banned at the Gural tracks. Allard had been banned at the Meadowlands since 2013.

He has 4,570 career wins and his horses have earned over $53 million.

Allard, 36, was charged with misbranding and drug alteration, which carries a maximum sentence of five years. He continues to fight the charges.

During its investigation of Allard, the FBI intercepted a disturbing phone conversation between Ross Cohen and Louis Grasso, two others under indictment, discussing the deaths of horses trained by Allard who died after being given illegal drugs. Cohen referred to Allard's operation as the “Allard death camp.”

According to a deposition given by FBI agent Bruce Turpin, a raid of Allard's barn produced multiple empty syringes, the drug Glycopyrrolate, epinephrine and vials labeled “Thymosine Beta” and “for researching purposes only.”

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The latest legal salvo, fired Dec. 17 by prosecutors in the form of a letter, comes three days before Fishman's Dec. 20 bail revocation hearing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York).

This latest plot twist in the case began Dec. 6, when prosecutors told the judge that Fishman's administrative assistant permitted Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to search her workplace, and the search allegedly yielded evidence that Fishman is still selling drugs.

One week later, Fishman replied with a court filing of his own that stated that employee “had little choice but to succumb to the demand by agents that they be permitted to search the premises” because at the time her consent to the search was obtained “she was at risk of prosecution for the very offenses with which Dr. Fishman was charged.”

Friday's new filing made three points:

“First, Fishman attempts to justify his continued manufacture of drugs by claiming a 'good faith' effort to meet the requirements of the 'export exemption' set forth in 21 U.S.C. § 381(e),” the Dec. 17 filing stated.

“Second, the defendant suggests that the Government has implicitly condoned his ongoing criminal activity insofar as Fishman and/or his former counsel have claimed that Fishman holds an intention to continue his drug sales in conformity with the foreign sales exemption of 21 U.S.C. § 381(e),” the filing stated.

“Finally, the Government notes that Fishman points to no authority for the proposition that a proffering witness cannot provide voluntary consent to a search,” the filing stated.

Fishman is charged with two felony counts related to drug alteration, misbranding, and conspiring to defraud the government. His trial is tentatively expected to start in mid-January.

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Attorneys Rita Glavin and Michael Considine said in court filings that the FBI in seeking the wiretaps made “material misstatements and omissions” that were “deliberate or reckless” in seeking the wiretap on Servis authorized on April 30, 2019, and extended three times. The attorneys said the wiretap resulted in the “interception of thousands of communications” of Servis, one of several trainers indicted in the federal investigation that began in 2017.

First, the attorneys state, the FBI chose not to inform the court that no horses under Servis' care failed any post-race drug tests during the span of the investigation. “By contrast,” they wrote, “horses trained by Thoroughbred horse trainer Bob Baffert (who has never been criminally charged) have failed numerous post-race drug tests in the last several years, most recently failing a post-race drug test for the 2021 disqualified Kentucky Derby winner, 'Medina Spirit.'” (Editor's Note: A hearing has yet to be conducted on Medina Spirit's positive drug test and he has not been disqualified from the Derby.)

Secondly, the attorneys allege, FBI agents consistently misstated the nature of two drugs mentioned in connection with Servis: SGF-1000, a product marketed by Kentucky-based Medivet Equine, and the bronchodilator clenbuterol.

“SGF-1000 was repeatedly tested prior to the wiretap and found to contain no performance enhancing substances,” the attorneys claim, citing a number of emails between different parties and the Hong Kong Jockey Club, whose lab apparently tested the substance that is said to contain sheep collagen as a primary ingredient. Despite that, the attorneys wrote, an FBI agent seeking the original wiretap or extensions “repeatedly described SGF-1000 to the court as a 'growth factor' and 'performance enhancing substance.'”

The attorneys' memorandum in support of the motion to suppress also quotes from intercepted comments by Rhein (a part owner of Medivet) that SGF-1000 does not contain any illegal substances.  “Everything we've done is by the letter of the law,” Rhein told Servis in one conversation.

On Tuesday, Rhein pleaded guilty in federal court to administering and distributing adulterated and misbranded drugs and faces three years in prison.

“In its zeal to secure and maintain the wiretap,” the attorneys claim, “the government also misled the issuing courts about clenbuterol, wrongfully characterizing it as a performance-enhancing drug that was banned by various state regulators. In fact, clenbuterol was expressly permitted in the jurisdictions Mr. Servis' horses raced. “Although local rules of the relevant jurisdictions provide that a horse cannot race when clenbuterol is present within their system above a certain threshold at the time of a race, none of Mr. Servis' horses failed a single post-race test during the period of the government's investigation. The government withheld this fact from the issuing courts as well,” the attorneys wrote.

Their final argument claims that the FBI “misled the court about the necessity for a wiretap of Mr. Servis' phone in its requirement to explain that 'normal investigative procedures have been tried and have failed or reasonably appear to be unlikely to succeed if tried or to be too dangerous.' … The government failed to take even the most basic of investigative steps with respect to Mr. Servis, and instead ran to the District Court for a wiretap as essentially its first investigative step.”

The motion also seeks suppression of evidence from wiretaps on the phones of Rhein and Navarro, the latter of whom has asked the court for a hearing to change his “not guilty” plea.

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Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “Michael Kegley promoted and sold unregulated performance enhancing substances intended for use by those engaged in fraud and unconscionable animal abuse in the world of professional horseracing. This conviction underscores that our Office and our partners at the FBI are committed to the prosecution and investigation of corruption, fraud, and endangerment at every level of the horse racing industry.”

According to the allegations contained in the Superseding Information, the prior Indictments[1], other filings in this case, and statements during court proceedings:

The charges in the Navarro case arise from an investigation of widespread schemes by racehorse trainers, veterinarians, performance-enhancing drug (“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 throughout the United States and other countries, including in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, and the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”), all to the detriment and risk of the health and well-being of the racehorses. Trainers who participated in the schemes stood to profit from the success of racehorses under their control by earning a share of their horses' winnings, and by improving their horses' racing records, thereby yielding higher trainer fees and increasing the number of racehorses under their control. Veterinarians and drug distributors, such as Kegley, who worked as the director of sales for an unregistered distributor of equine drugs, profited from the sale and administration of these medically unnecessary, misbranded, and adulterated substances.

Among the misbranded and adulterated PEDs marketed and sold by Kegley was the drug “SGF-1000,” which was compounded and manufactured in unregistered facilities. SGF-1000 was an intravenous drug promoted as, among other things, a vasodilator capable of promoting stamina, endurance, and lower heart rates in horses through the purported action of “growth factors” supposedly derived from sheep placenta. Despite marketing, selling, and administering SGF-1000, Kegley acknowledged in intercepted calls that he, along with a co-defendant involved in the sale of SGF-1000, did not know the actual contents of SGF-1000. Nevertheless, Kegley's sales of that drug persisted, aided by the claim that SGF-1000 would be untestable in horses by law enforcement.

According to the Thoroughbred Daily News, Kegley's testimony during Friday's proceedings included the following statement: “Beginning in 2016, I was an independent contractor for a company, MediVet Equine. We sold a variety of products, including SGF-1000. I sold these products to veterinarians, horse trainers. When I did that I knew there was no medical prescription for those products. Also at the time, I knew that the product was not manufactured in an FDA approved facility, nor was it approved for sale by the FDA.”

U.S. Attorney Strauss praised the outstanding investigative work of the FBI New York Office's Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force and its support of the FBI's Integrity in Sports and Gaming Initiative.

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

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U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “Scott Mangini created and flooded the supply side of a market of greed that continues to endanger racehorses through the sale of performance-enhancing drugs. Mangini designed and created dozens of products intended for use by those engaged in fraud and animal abuse. His products were manufactured with no oversight of their composition, in shoddy facilities, despite prior efforts by state and federal regulators to shut down Mangini's operation and strip his license. Mangini's guilty plea underscores 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 prior Indictments, the Superseding Information to which Mangini pled guilty, and other court documents, as well as statements made in public court proceedings:

From at least in or about 2011 through at least in or about March 2020, Mangini and his conspirators manufactured, sold, and shipped millions of dollars' worth of adulterated and misbranded equine drugs, including performance-enhancing drugs (“PEDs”) intended to be administered to racehorses for the purpose of improving those horses' race performance in order to win races and obtain prize money. Mangini, a former pharmacist whose license was suspended in 2016, sold these drugs through several direct-to-consumer websites designed to appeal to racehorse trainers and owners, including, among others, “horseprerace.com” and “racehorsemeds.com.”

Mangini contributed to the conspiracy by, among other things, using his training to design and create custom PEDs that were advertised and sold online, using misleading labels, packaging, and return address information, including sales to customers in the Southern District of New York. 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 that 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. Mangini and his co-conspirators repeatedly touted illegal drugs sold on these websites as substances that “WILL NOT TEST” in the event of drug screens by racing officials. For example, Mangini's pain-numbing product “Numb It Injection” was advertised as a “proprietary formula and without question the most powerful pain shot in the market today AND WILL NOT TEST,” and customers were expressly directed to administer the drug by “injection as close to the event or extreme exercise as possible.”

The drugs distributed through the defendant's websites were manufactured in non-Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) -registered facilities and carried significant risks to the animals affected through the administration of those illicit PEDs. For example, in 2016, Mangini and his co-conspirator, Scott Robinson, who was previously convicted and sentenced in this case, 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 to Mangini, Robinson wrote simply, “here is another one.”

Mangini is among 29 individuals charged to date 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, horse racing officials, and the FDA, among others, 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.

Mangini, 55, of Boca Raton, Florida, pled guilty to one count of conspiring to violate the federal drug misbranding and adulteration laws. This offense carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The maximum potential sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.

Ms. Strauss praised the outstanding investigative work of the New York FBI Office's Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force and its support of the FBI's Integrity in Sports and Gaming Initiative. Ms. 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 FDA and the U.S. 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, Anden Chow, Benet Kearney, and Andrew C. Adams are in charge of the prosecution.

The post Owner Of Illegal Racehorse Doping Websites Scott Mangini Pleads Guilty In Federal Court appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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In the ensuing 12 months – despite the challenges to the Justice Department brought about by COVID-19 –  there have been two guilty pleas; this past week one of those individuals, Scott Robinson, accused ot selling performance enhancing substances that wound up in racehorses, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy.

In this week's edition of the Friday Show, publisher Ray Paulick and Natalie Voss, the Paulick Report's three-time Eclipse Award winning editor in chief, discuss the federal case's developments and what we can expect in the months and even years going forward. Bloodstock editor Joe Nevills joins the show to talk about the Star of the Week and has a Toast to Vino Rosso, highlighting one of the foals from the first crop by the Breeders' Cup Classic-winning son of Curlin.

Click below to watch this week's Friday Show.

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