federal indictments | Horse Racing Free Tips

Audrey Strauss, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced Wednesday that two defendants, Scott Robinson and Sarah Izhaki, each pled guilty today to conspiring to unlawfully distribute adulterated and misbranded drugs for the purpose of doping racehorses in connection with the two cases in which they are charged, United States v. Robinson, 20 Cr. 162 (JPO), and United States v. Izhaki, 20 Cr. 161 (MKV). Robinson pled guilty before U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken, and will be sentenced by Judge Oetken on Jan. 15, 2021. Izhaki pled guilty before U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, and will be sentenced by Judge Vyskocil on Dec. 2, 2020.

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said: “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. 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, the Superseding Information to which Robinson pled guilty, the Superseding Information to which Izhaki 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, 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.”

The Paulick Report published an investigative report on HorsePreRace in 2016. Click here to read that reporting.

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 United States 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, Fla., 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. The maximum potential sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendants will be determined by the judge.

Acting 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 Bureau'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 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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Since the indictment of more than two dozen trainers, assistants, veterinarians, and pharmacists in connection with a horse doping ring this March, rumors have swirled that more names could be forthcoming in connection with the federal investigation. Speaking at a status conference for the case on Tuesday morning, Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Adams told U.S. District Judge Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil that a superseding indictment could be around the corner, but did not provide details as to the timing.

“We are looking seriously at superseding indictments,” said Adams. “For the moment, and I made this point at least to some defense counsel previously, the nature of what we're looking at is largely in the same kind of criminal conduct as what is in the current indictment. We're looking at expanding timeframes for certain of the conspiracies. We're looking at potentially adding different statutory charges with respect to certain of the defendants. What I do not anticipate for the moment is that those superseding indictments, if and when they come, would require the production of some substantial large set of materials not already produced to date or already in the queue of things we expect to produce.”

A superseding indictment is one which replaces an existing indictment, and could add charges against already-named defendants and/or could name new defendants.

Vyskocil reminded Adams that the court would not hold things up while the government finishes its investigation. Adams said he understood and that he would not ask to hold up the proceedings for that reason.

The charges on the current indictments, which names former top trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis, among others, focus on drug adulteration, misbranding, and conspiracy. The indictments claim a network of horsemen, veterinarians and pharmacy reps sold, distributed and used drugs in racehorses for the purpose of performance enhancement.

Other than a potential superseding indictment, there are not likely to be many updates in the case until late fall. Currently, attorneys are going through the discovery process, meaning each side is requesting and providing requested evidence in the case. Adams said he believes his office will be able to provide the last of the discovery material requested by defendants by the end of September.

Already, the office has provided some 90 gigabytes' worth of data to all defendants in three different volumes, and has fielded 20 additional individual requests. That data includes the results of 30 different search warrants, intercepted phone calls and text messages, geolocation information for various devices, email accounts, file transfer accounts, inventory lists, shipping records, veterinary records, drug promotional and marketing material, and much more. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is still extracting data from devices like cell phones and tablets seized from defendants at the time of their arrests.

After the government produces requested evidence, it is sent to a coordinating discovery attorney for organization and distribution. One defense attorney pointed out that it generally takes the coordinating discovery attorney roughly a month to process large document releases before they are given over to defense counsel, so a late September target for discovery completion means they will get a look at the last of the evidence in early November.

Vyskocil scheduled a status conference for Nov. 19. Most participants on the call agreed it would be impractical to set a trial date or motion schedule until the defense has seen all the government's evidence against their clients.

Read more about the federal indictments in this March 9 piece from the Paulick Report.

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