Judge Grants Alleged Dopers Additional Month to Examine Evidence

The judge in the federal case against 14 alleged horse dopers on Friday granted a motion by the defense to extend the time frame to file motions to suppress evidence because of the massive amount of documentation that attorneys must sift through, which includes transcripts of potentially incriminating phone recordings, emails and text messages.

“Given the volume of discovery that we are still reviewing, I respectfully request that the Phase Two Motions schedule be modified as follows: defense motions due June 28, government response due July 28, and defense replies due on Aug. 11,” attorney Rita Glavin, who represents the disqualified GI Kentucky Derby-winning trainer Jason Servis, wrote in a request to modify the briefing schedule.

Glavin wrote that the request has the support of the attorneys for the remaining 13 defendants in the alleged conspiracy to manufacture, mislabel, distribute and administer performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds across America and in international races. She added that the prosecuting attorneys have consented to the extension.

The time extension was granted Mar. 12 by U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, which effectively pushes back the start of a trial until after Labor Day.

On Mar. 9, one year to the date of the nationwide that sting resulted in the first arrests in the case, Scott Robinson, a drug manufacturer and distributor who had earlier pleaded guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding, was the first defendant to get sentenced for his crimes. A federal judge imposed 18 months in federal prison and ordered Robinson to forfeit $3.8 million in PED sales proceeds for his role in the alleged doping network. The maximum sentence for that offense is five years.

Of the remaining defendants, the headline-grabbers are 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 the now-barred but formerly above-norm-win-percentage trainer Jorge 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 GI Golden Shaheen in Dubai.

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: 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.

Right now the court case is in the midst of a preliminary round of hearing “dispositive motions” that the defense has thus far filed to try and put an end to some of the charges. A secondary round of motions dealing only with requests to suppress evidence and expert testimony is the time frame that got extended on Friday. The next status hearing in the case is May 14.

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Allard Attorney: Gural ‘Escalating Long-Running Campaign To Blacklist’ Trainer

The Paulick Report received the following open letter from attorney Douglas E. Lieb on behalf of trainer Rene Allard. Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural released a statement earlier this week revealing that Allard, who is under federal indictment, was continuing to train horses and that horses under his care would be excluded from stakes races at The Meadowlands, Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs. Further, Gural's statement declared that owners who have or had horses in Allard's stable this past winter would have all horses owned wholly or in part excluded from participation at the three tracks. 

Allard was named as part of a superseding indictment filed near the end of 2020 in a case of drug adulteration and misbranding along with co-defendants Louis Grasso, Donato Poliseno, Thomas Guido III, and Richard Banca, many of whom were part of the first wave of federal indictments regarding drugs in racing from March 2020. 

Conditions of bail for Allard state that, among other conditions, he may not “train horses entered in any races” and is “to have no contact with racehorses outside the presence of third-party owner or delegated representative of the owner of the premises where racehorse is located.” When asked where Allard was operating and what the arrangements were for his supervision by a horse or facility owner, Lieb said, “Mr. Allard has complied at all times with his release conditions in the criminal case and continues to do so. We have no further information to provide at this time.” 

Dear Mr. Gural:

This firm is civil counsel to Rene Allard. Last week, you further escalated your long-running campaign to blacklist Mr. Allard from his chosen profession. Mr. Allard has every right to make a living. He has every right to continue training horses, which is his passion and his life's work. All of his current professional activities are specifically permitted by court order. We demand that you cease and desist from your tortious interference with — and your efforts to organize a group boycott of — Mr. Allard's business. Your actions are not just unlawful, but wrong.

You began your campaign against Mr. Allard in 2013 by excluding him from your racetracks. You then employed a private investigative firm that harassed and threatened others in the harness racing industry unless they provided negative information about Mr. Allard. You then caused unreliable information generated by those investigators to be turned over to the United States Government, leading to Mr. Allard's arrest. As a result of your actions, Mr. Allard is the subject of a pending criminal prosecution in which he fully intends to clear his name.

In the latest escalation, you have now demanded that all horse owners who do business with Mr. Allard stop doing so as a condition of doing business with you. On March 6, 2021, the Meadowlands media relations department issued a statement (the “March 6 statement”) that the three racetracks you control—The Meadowlands, Tioga Downs, and Vernon Downs, which account for a significant portion of harness racing opportunities in the Northeast and include harness racing's flagship track—will “exclude any horse being trained or that has been trained” by Mr. Allard in Florida. The March 6 statement also notes that for owners who “currently have or have had horses in Mr. Allard's stable this winter,” “all horses owned wholly or in part by them will be excluded” from these three tracks and “deemed ineligible . . . for any/all administered stake races . . . for a minimum of three years.” Owners who have done business with Mr. Allard must also divest their interest from any horses not trained by Mr. Allard in which they are minority owners by March 15 in order for those horses to race at your tracks. The ban would likely affect dozens of owners and hundreds of horses that have never been trained by Mr. Allard.

Thus, in addition to banning horses trained by Mr. Allard, the March 6 statement effectively provides that any owners who have any business relationship with Mr. Allard must agree to cease doing business with him as a condition of doing unrelated business with your tracks. The pressure on owners is severe. Owners who agree to the policy announced in your March 6 Statement would need to immediately sell their ownership interest in horses that are not trained by Mr. Allard, which would likely mean selling those horses at a loss. Owners who do not agree to the policy would presumably lose the stakes money they have already paid to race at the Meadowlands this year and any purses they may have won from racing there.

It is difficult to envision a clearer example of tortious interference with business relations. You are engaged in “deliberate interference” with Mr. Allard's existing contractual relationships with owners in an effort to induce owners to breach their contracts with Mr. Allard. NBT Bancorp Inc. v. Fleet/Norstar Fin. Grp., Inc., 87 N.Y.2d 614, 621 (1996). You are also making statements that “impugn[] the basic integrity” of Mr. Allard's business. Amaranth LLC v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., 71 A.D.3d 40, 48 (1st Dep't 2009) (“[Plaintiff] has adequately pleaded the elements of tortious interference with prospective economic advantage. It is well settled that where a statement impugns the basic integrity . . . of a business, an action lies and injury is conclusively presumed.”). And you are exerting severe economic pressure on owners by threatening to freeze them out of the most important opportunities in their field if they have any economic relations with Mr. Allard in the future. See, e.g.Carvel Corp. v. Noonan, 3 N.Y.3d 182, 193-94 (2004) (severe economic pressure on third parties who do business with plaintiff may constitute tortious interference with plaintiff's prospective economic relations).

You are also, in potential violation of the Sherman Act, attempting to orchestrate a group boycott of Mr. Allard in plain sight. A group boycott is an agreement among participants in the relevant market not to deal, or only to deal on discriminatory terms, with a competitor. See, e.g.NYNEX Corp. v. Discon, Inc., 525 U.S. 128, 134 (1998). Such boycotts are per se unlawful—meaning that they are illegal irrespective of whether they actually have an anticompetitive effect or a legitimate business rationale—where they involve horizontal agreements among competitors. Seee.g.Fashion Originators' Guild of Am., Inc. v. FTC, 312 U.S. 457 (1941). You are both an owner of racetracks and an owner of horses. Should you succeed in your efforts to induce other horse owners to agree not to do business with Mr. Allard as a condition of doing business with you, you would be entering into such horizontal agreements.

The improper purpose of the March 6 statement is further confirmed by your history of targeting Mr. Allard — and others in your industry who defy your edicts.

In 2013, after Mr. Allard won several significant races at your tracks and was having an excellent season (including a training UDRS of .367), you excluded him from racing at any of your tracks without explanation. As you have acknowledged, banning trainers — especially winning ones — from the Meadowlands can help your bottom line. That is so in part because you and your close associates sometimes have stakes in horses competing in those same races.

 A trainer has previously testified under oath that you banned him from your racetrack because he was winning races. After another trainer spoke out publicly against that ban, you banned him too. When a trainer worked to defeat legislation that would have expressly authorized the practice of allowing horses you own to race on your tracks, you banned him — and then banned other horsemen who were merely members of the association that opposed the proposed bill.

Even after you banned Mr. Allard from your racetracks, Mr. Allard continued his long track record of success. You, in turn, continued taking measures that would harm his career. You engaged a private investigative firm, 5 Stones Intelligence, to investigate Mr. Allard. 5 Stones used aggressive, unlawful tactics in an attempt to coerce witnesses into incriminating others in the industry. When witnesses refused to participate and told 5 Stones that they were not aware of any wrongdoing, 5 Stones threatened their careers in the industry.

You then gave the Government the information that 5 Stones collected through these questionable means. As you noted in the March 6 statement: “We, along with the Thoroughbred Jockey Club, spent much time and money employing the Five Stones investigators to prepare a case to get the feds interested which led to all of those indictments,” referring to the indictment against Mr. Allard and others. Your own words suggest that your purpose in retaining 5 Stones was not to uncover the truth. It was to produce information, whether true or false, that would “get the Feds interested” and lead the Government to indict Mr. Allard. In other words, you worked with 5 Stones to “lead the FBI in the right direction.” That the Government charged Mr. Allard on the basis of information provided at least in part by yourself and 5 Stones — after your years-long campaign against Mr. Allard, and after 5 Stones' repeated harassment of witnesses — raises serious doubt about the criminal charges that Mr. Allard now faces.

Despite Mr. Allard's arrest, owners have continued to employ him to train their young, non-racing horses because they are confident in his integrity and future success. As you are surely aware, Mr. Allard has been permitted by prosecutors and the Court to continue making a living by engaging in this work while the criminal case is pending. You, however, have continued your efforts to put Mr. Allard out of business entirely. Even before the March 6 Statement, you contacted owners directly to pressure them to end their business with Mr. Allard. Those private communications were consistent with your thinly veiled public comments that “anyone who used these people who were indicted cannot be sleeping well” and that “some might find it in their interest to cooperate.”

We hereby demand that you formally retract the March 6 Statement. We further demand that you state in writing that will not seek to require owners to stop doing business with Mr. Allard as a condition of entering horses into races at tracks you control.

You, your corporate entities, your affiliates, your employees and agents, and others acting at your direction, including but not limited to 5 Stones Intelligence, must also preserve all documents and correspondence concerning the investigation of Mr. Allard; your direct and indirect communications with others in the industry about Mr. Allard's business and/or conduct; and/or the March 6 Statement.

This letter is not an exhaustive recitation of Mr. Allard's legal claims, rights, or remedies, all of which we expressly reserve.

Sincerely yours,

Douglas E. Lieb

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Voss: ‘I Love Horses’ Only Takes You So Far

I think it's fair to say that most people in the racing industry were disgusted when they read the federal indictments last March of 27 people, including trainers, veterinarians, and drug makers. The very first person from that group of 27 was sentenced this week to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding.

I've reported on companies affiliated with Scott Robinson for several years now, and I had reason to suspect the conditions under which he and his co-conspirator Scott Mangini made illegal drugs were poor. Even I was surprised at some of the details in court documents filed around his sentencing, and I don't think I've been so horrified by a legal document since the original indictments.

The pre-sentencing report filed by the prosecution is littered with strong language about Robinson's involvement in peddling products designed to act as performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) or as substitutes for more expensive prescriptions. Possibly the most upsetting part of the document, which you can read here, was intercepted messages between Robinson and Mangini describing issues Robinson was seeing with products headed off for sale. Robinson describes “blood building peptide has black particles” floating in it, and a bug floating in a bottle which was “crimped,” suggesting it was a bottle of injectable product. Despite these quality concerns, Robinson kept selling the stuff, and presumably, his customers kept injecting it.

In case you wondered, as I did, what happens when you inject a product that's contaminated with bugs and other solids into a horse's muscle or vein, safe to say it's not a pretty picture. Solid particles would travel with an injected substance through a horse's veins, through the heart's atrium and ventricles, and via the aorta to the body. The vessels and capillaries it would travel through on its journey get gradually smaller, some as small as six to eight microns. The smallest particles visible to the naked eye are around 40 microns, so anything of that size will likely be stuck somewhere. In humans, the trapping of a solid particle somewhere in the circulatory system is known to cause anaphylactic shock, pulmonary embolisms, heart attacks, vein irritation, and death. If a horse in this situation is very unlucky, tissues would slowly die as they become unable to receive proper blood flow and oxygen. It's a painful experience for the animal.

According to one testing expert I spoke with, the reaction could be instant or it could take enough time that someone may not connect the horse's death to the injection it received. That likely means we won't know how many horses may have been sickened or killed by the products Robinson peddled.

Robinson's attorneys, of course, did their best to minimize the amount of time he would spend in prison after entering his guilty plea. That's their job. Prosecutors were pushing for the maximum sentence of 60 months, and defense counsel asked for 0 months. The judge landed on 18 months, which Robinson will begin serving later this year. One of the arguments made in support of Robinson grossed me out even more than his dismissive responses to concerns about the safety of his products – his attorneys suggested the judge should go easy on him, in part, because of how much he loves horses.

The defense pre-sentencing report, which you can read here, summarized character references provided by friends and family of Robinson. More than one discussed Robinson's disdain for mistreatment of animals, particularly racehorses.

“From my three years of work with Mr. Robinson, I have become aware of his great knowledge of and love for racehorses,” wrote his psychiatrist, Dr. Ronald E. DeMao. “Horses and horse racing have literally 'been his life.' It is inconceivable to me that he would ever do anything to intentionally harm a horse. In fact, he has developed products to aid in the physical health and rehabilitation of horses. I have heard him speak in very pejorative terms about others who 'dope' or harshly train racehorses.”

Writing of his “genuine concern for the way some horses are treated,” regenerative medicine physician Dr. Michael Heim said: “A story that has always struck me in a powerful way is Scott's description of a practice in horse racing called bleaching which, to the best of my knowledge, is when a horse is injected intravenously with bleach in order to improve physical performance for a short time but at an obvious cost to the horse's health. Scott has described to me how he has been able to spot such horses in a deteriorated state, purchase them, and subsequently nurse them back to health. As an animal lover, I find any practice such as bleaching to be detestable and applaud Scott's efforts to help even a single horse regain health.”

I'm left wondering whether, in his concern for racehorse welfare, Robinson ever reported to a racing commission, law enforcement, or the FDA people he thought were injecting bleach into horses. Or did he think that might be a bit hypocritical?

I don't find the notion of sentimentality over horses very compelling when it's coming from someone pleading guilty to the acts described here, or in the federal indictment. “I love horses,” will not save you if you have a hand in hurting them.

The prosecution evidently didn't find this part of Robinson's argument compelling, either.

“The claim in one such letter that Robinson “spoke in very pejorative terms about others who 'dope' racehorses contradicts the slate of products Robinson offered for sale … Far from decrying 'dopers,' Robinson catered to them through his various ventures, and reaped millions of dollars in sales from these businesses.”

But let's broaden that conclusion, shall we?

When much of the world reacted with outrage to the now-infamous photo of trainer Gordon Elliott grinning astride a dead horse in Ireland, the response from many in the racing industry was to talk about how much they love horses – or in a few cases, how much Elliott loves them. How many times have we seen this response? Horses die at Santa Anita, and well-intentioned people in racing post photos of themselves snuggling foals with the naïve belief that this will absolve whatever sin is in the headlines this month. A series of drug positives from a prominent trainer makes headlines; a racehorse winds up in the kill pen after struggling home last; a jockey is caught with a buzzer – we love our horses, all of us love them, these are just a few bad apples. 'Feel sorry for us!' they cry, 'People think we're mean, just because animals are dead.'

Anyone in public relations or in professional sports knows that the best defense is a good offense. By the time you're reacting to another welfare embarrassment, you've already lost, and that's because repeated protestations of love start to sound hollow when there keep being reasons to renew them.

It's not exactly the same, of course. The sport as a whole is made up of many individuals of different mindsets and levels of feeling for their horses, while the defendant here is one man. But it's worth remembering: when we speak to the outside world, much like a school of fish, the world sees one body, and it's going to judge us by what they see us do, not how we say we feel.

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Robinson, Defendant In Federal Doping Indictment, Sentenced To 18 Months In Prison

Scott Robinson, one of the defendants in the federal case that rocked horse racing in March 2020, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. The Thoroughbred Daily News reported that U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken handed down the sentence on Tuesday after Robinson pleaded guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy in September 2020.

Robinson, together with pharmacist Scott Mangini, was accused of operating consumer-facing websites such as HorsePreRace, peddling products which purported to be blood builders and pain blockers which were allegedly untestable, as well as discounted versions of prescription drugs despite not being an FDA-approved manufacturer. Robinson is neither a veterinarian nor a pharmacist.

Click here to read the Paulick Report's investigation of HorsePreRace from 2016.

A pre-sentencing report filed by federal prosecutors ahead of Oetken's ruling revealed even more disturbing details about the conditions in which those products were made. A state pharmacy board inspection report dated February 2016 which was published by the Paulick Report had picked up on unsanitary conditions at co-conspirator Scott Mangini's facility in Florida: the Florida Department of Health Records noted that there was no working sink in the pharmacy for hand washing, and employees were instead using a ten-gallon bucket. The department noted so much dust on the counters where prescriptions were made that an investigator was able to trace letters in the dirt with an alcohol swab — a particular problem since some products were injectables. Ingredients were mislabeled.

Click here to read more about Mangini's facility from this 2016 investigative feature by the Paulick Report.

Even before that inspection however, the report cited communications from Robinson to Mangini indicating he knew something could be wrong with the products he was selling. In spring 2015, Robinson began asking Mangini whether there had been changes to manufacturing processes.

“R u making stuff different? I have a lot of stuff that doesn't look same and has stuff floating in it. Blood building peptide has black particles,” one message to Mangini read.

“[Employee] has been complaining of bugs coming out of boxes u send. I told him he was crazy until I found one floating in bottle today when labeling,” read another, also to Mangini.

The Board of Pharmacy conducted its inspection in December 2015, but Robinson was dismissive of any danger resulting from the inspection, writing to Mangini, “And board of pharmacy worries about u? They got bigger problems! Lol.”

(Mangini, who has been charged with two counts of drug adulteration and misbranding, has entered a not guilty plea and his case is ongoing.)

Between December 2015 and January 2016, Robinson fielded complaints from trainers who had injected Pentosan into their horses, only to see the horses become severely depressed and unable to move. The horses' veterinarian attributed the reactions to a bad batch. The pre-sentencing report indicated Robinson “was dismissive of these complaints.”

When federal agents executed search warrants on premises used by Robinson in September 2019, prosecutors say he became incensed and “attempted to extort the federal agents involved in the seizure by threatening to release a letter to certain members of the racehorse industry informing them of of the existence and scope of the FBI's investigation if the FBI did not immediately return his electronic devices the same day they were seized. After being informed his threat was itself a crime, Robinson retracted his threat hours later.”

After he became aware the FBI was investigating him, prosecutors say Robinson continued distributing adulterated and misbranded drugs, generating “millions of dollars in revenue.”

Prosecutors had requested the maximum available sentence of five years in prison, while Robinson's defense team, pointing out his lack of prior criminal convictions, suggested he serve no time. Defense attorneys painted a picture of a man who had risen to business success from near-homelessness and who battled depression and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) due to injuries sustained in the United States Navy. Letters from friends and family framed Robinson as a caring person who gave liberally to charity and financially supported family members.

Although Robinson had no criminal history, prosecutors did note that he was court martialed in 1998 and dishonorably discharged from the Navy after he admitted to reselling anabolic steroids to other enlisted members of the Navy.

One character reference letter in support of Robinson's defense came from New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program, where executive director Dot Morgan wrote that Robinson “donated a massive amount of his compounded omeprazole ulcer treatment” to the program in 2010 and 2011. In 2014, HorsePreRace and HorseGold (of which Robinson was president) were the recipients of warning letters from the Food and Drug Administration warning them to stop marketing omeprazole and other products designed to act as prescription drugs because they were not approved as mass manufacturers of drugs.

Another letter, from Robinson's psychiatrist, highlighted the defendant's feelings for horses.

“From my three years of work with Mr. Robinson, I have become aware of his great knowledge of and love for racehorses,” wrote Dr. Ronald E. DeMao. “Horses and horse racing have literally “been his life.” It is inconceivable to me that he would ever do anything to intentionally harm a horse. In fact, he has developed products to aid in the physical health and rehabilitation of horses. I have heard him speak in very pejorative terms about others who 'dope' or harshly train racehorses.”

Robinson is required to surrender himself on Sept. 7, 2021 to begin his sentence. He will have another three years of supervised release after serving his time.

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