Navarro Starts Prison Sentence

The Juice Man has a new home.

After being granted a 30-day delay to the start of his sentence because he was due for eye surgery, disgraced former trainer Jorge Navarro has begun his sentence at FCI Miami, a low security federal correctional institution in Miami. Navarro began his sentence Thursday.

In December, Navarro was sentenced to five years imprisonment by Judge Mary Kay Vsykocil of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit drug adulteration or misbranding. Navarro has also been ordered to pay $25.8 million in restitution to the owners, trainers and jockeys he defeated from 2016 to when he was arrested in March 2020.

Things could have been worse for Navarro. He is not a U.S. citizen, which caused his attorney Jason Kreiss to speculate that he might be sent to a prison under the control of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a worse fate than being sentenced to a minimum security federal prison. Prior to entering prison Navarro had been living with his family in Ocala and Kreiss had sought to have him incarcerated at a facility near his home.

Navarro is one of 754 inmates at the main prison. The FCI facility also includes a satellite camp with 201 inmates.

Navarro's new uniform will be khaki trousers and shirts with institution issued boots or approved medical shoes. He will also be assigned to a work detail, which could mean working in the laundry, the commissary, the kitchen or doing landscaping. The pay for those jobs ranges from 12 cents an hour to 40 cents an hour. He will receive three meals a day, starting with breakfast at 6:10 am. Dinner begins at 5:15 pm.

FCI Miami opened in 1976 as a center for youth offenders and is built along the lines of a campus. The campus includes a lake in the middle of the compound. In 2000, the prison was renamed FCI Miami.

Its most famous prisoner was former Panamanian Dictator Manuel Noriega, who was convicted of drug trafficking, racketeering, and money laundering. After spending 20 years at FCI Miami, he was extradited to France.

According to the website whitecollaradvice.com, over half the prison population is Hispanic and many are from Puerto Rico. Navarro is Panamanian.

In a 2020 article that appeared in the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, the newspaper wrote of a situation where smuggled contraband was a rising problem. Fifty prohibited cell phones were found in one investigation.

“FCI Miami sits on a patch of scrubby Pine Rockland shared with Zoo Miami and a small U.S. Army base,” the article reads. “The facility has held the famous and the infamous. Ponzi schemer Peter Madoff, Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega and Jamaican reggae legend Buju Banton have called it home.”

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Judge Upholds Meadowlands Ban of Owners Associated with Indicted Trainer

A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by eight harness owners who were banned at the tracks owned by Jeff Gural due to their ties with indicted trainer Rene Allard. Gural owns the Meadowlands in New Jersey and Tioga Downs and Vernon Downs in New York.

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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Feds: More Doping Charges Could Be in Pipeline

The federal prosecutor leading the case against an alleged network of racehorse dopers underscored several times during a Nov. 17 court hearing that the government might not yet be done bringing new charges that could involve either existing or fresh defendants as it continues to investigate a purported years-long conspiracy to manufacture, mislabel, rebrand, distribute and administer performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds across America and in international races.

“There may well be other crimes as to the particular defendants in this case,” United States Attorney Andrew Adams said in response to a direct question on that topic from U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. “And [the government] is continuing to look at other people who are not currently charged.”

During the Tuesday morning teleconference, 14 defendants pleaded “not guilty” to updated charges in US. District Court (Southern District of New York) stemming from a Nov. 5 superseding indictment that replaced an original indictment filed after a wave of arrests in March.

The headline Thoroughbred industry defendants in the case are the now-barred but formerly above-norm-win-percentage trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro.

A dozen other alleged co-conspirators either appeared via phone or had pleas entered by their attorneys on Tuesday. They include drug manufacturers, distributors, stable employees, and veterinarians allegedly involved to various degrees in the five counts listed in the indictment. They are: 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.

In addition, five individuals named in the original March indictment were not included in the superseding indictment, which has led to speculation that they could be cooperating with law enforcement authorities to widen the case in exchange for having charges dropped. Two other defendants pleaded guilty in September.

On Tuesday Adams revealed that prosecutors now believe that at least two of the alleged conspirators–Chan and Rhein–were pushing some fake PEDs to Servis that didn’t really enhance performance. But, the prosecutor added, the government will be treating those substances as if they were actual PEDs because Servis’s true intent was to allegedly dope horses.

Adams explained that the recently added wire fraud charges alleged against those three defendants were brought to light by investigators who uncovered “a false billing scheme relating to certain drugs being administered by Dr. Rhein’s veterinary practice, including to horses under the care and training of Mr. Servis.” He added that it amounts to false billing when “certain drugs were promoted or intended to be used as performance-enhancing drugs, regardless of the efficacy of those drugs.”

The prosecutor then elaborated: “That is, a drug that is promoted and intended to be a performance-enhancer but is, you know, a dud, is nevertheless [considered to be] a misbranded an adulterated drug for the purposes of this indictment…”

And because those allegedly false billing transactions purportedly were conducted via some form of phone, text, or email communications, they constitute wire fraud, the government is alleging.

When Judge Vyskocil asked Adams point-blank to name the victims who were allegedly defrauded via the five counts in the indictment, Adams did not hesitate to answer.

“Horse owners are among the primary or intended victims,” with regard to the wire fraud charges, Adams said.

“With respect to misbranding, the racetracks, racing commissions, owners [and other] competitors are all among people who were in the minds of the defendants charged with the misleading and deceit,” Adams added.

The news that more charges and/or yet another expanded time frame for the alleged crimes could be in the pipeline was not welcomed by defense attorneys, who have already lodged concerns about the massive volume of electronic evidence being introduced in the case and how an elongated discovery and pre-trial period is not in the best interest of their clients’ right to a speedy trial.

“We do continue to investigate and continue to look into all aspects of the case,” Adams said when pressed by the judge for some sort of timeline on potential future charges. “The wire fraud that has come down now is largely the fruit of investigations that straddled the original indictments. It was built on information from both before and after. And I don’t leave aside the possibility that that may happen again, with respect to other false billing practices.”

Servis’s attorney, Rita Glavin, said she wanted a more definitive answer so she could make the best defense possible for her client without having to start all over if new charges got levied against him. She asked Adams, “Does the government, as we sit here today, think it’s likely that there will be a superseding indictment in the next four to five months?”

Adams replied, “The government is not under an obligation to answer that question. And it frankly will not impact, in the government’s view, any timelines set for Mr. Servis.”

Glavin countered: “Today is the first that I’ve heard from the government a whisper that there may be another superseding indictment. And I understand the government’s representation that they don’t believe it would impact Mr. Servis. But I would have to see that when I see it. I don’t know what their current investigations are. But I certainly would be concerned about setting a schedule in the case if we’re going to see new charges come out.”

Despite the open-ended nature of the ongoing investigation and the mounting reams of evidence it is generating, Vyskocil declined to set a deadline for discovery. The judge did, however, aim to set a timetable for future proceedings that allowed the defense proper time to sift through all the relevant materials during the discovery period and to potentially file motions based on what attorneys uncover.

So a Feb. 5 date has now been set for the first round of what the judge termed as “dispositive motions” that the defense could file to put an end to some or all of the charges against defendants. The prosecution would then have a month to reply (Mar. 5), and the defense would get three additional weeks to counter those replies (Mar. 26).

A second round of motions dealing only with defense requests to suppress evidence or expert testimony now has a May 24 target deadline, but a status hearing scheduled 10 days before then will determine if that is a realistic date.

Vyskocil said at this point, it would be “premature” to even consider a pre-trial schedule that extends beyond the time frame of next spring.

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NY Horses from Federally Indicted Trainers Were Positive for Clenbuterol at 77%

Beyond the relatively obscure and exotic performance-enhancing drugs allegedly administered to the Thoroughbreds of federally indicted trainers who were charged in March in a years-long doping racket, subsequent testing on the New York contingent of those horses revealed 77% of them had clenbuterol in their systems.

And because medical records associated with those Thoroughbreds didn’t indicate that drug was administered for its intended purpose (to treat a medically legitimate airway disease), New York State Gaming Commission equine medical director Scott Palmer, VMD, said that the study he conducted on that set of horses offers proof that clenbuterol has been widely abused to bulk up horses, allowing their trainers to gain a pharmaceutical edge that makes the animals stronger and faster.

Palmer’s comments came during a Nov. 11 video press conference hosted by stakeholders and regulators who make up a Mid-Atlantic alliance of racing interests. His revelations about clenbuterol were just one example of how that group has been advancing a safety-centric agenda aimed at reducing equine fatalities in the region, which includes racing jurisdictions in New York, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

That study on clenbuterol that Palmer worked on also bolstered the Mid-Atlantic alliance’s recent push to eliminate the allowable race-day threshold for clenbuterol. On Oct. 22, the Maryland Racing Commission took the first steps toward turning that initiative into a new rule, and Palmer said on Wednesday other regional states are in the pipeline to follow.

Trainer Jason Servis, Jorge Navarro, and 22 others in both the Thoroughbred and Standardbred industries are facing federal charges in an alleged “widespread, corrupt scheme” dating to at least 2017 that centers on a vast network of co-conspirators who purportedly manufactured, mislabeled, rebranded, distributed and administered performance-enhancing drugs to racehorses all across America and in international races.

Palmer explained that when the indictments and arrests were first made public back in March, he took it as an opportunity to try and detect what other, more commonplace, substances were being used as performance-enhancers. He said he suspected clenbuterol because of the bronchodilator medication’s well-known, off-label potential for abuse as a substance that delivers similar lean muscle-building results as anabolic steroids.

“There was a whole list that the FBI generated through wiretapping these people that came up with a lot of medications,” Palmer said. “When I reviewed that list, certainly a lot of it looked to me like a ‘snake-oil’ situation where I wasn’t convinced that the things on that list were really making much of a [performance enhancement] difference. But I was concerned that there were other things that might be given to these horses that didn’t show up on the indictment list that could be a big factor.

“One of them was clenbuterol,” Palmer continued. “Clenbuterol is a drug that has, in addition to its ability to affect lower airway disease and improve it, [an ability to act as] a repartitioning agent [that] is used in humans for body-building effects. It’s basically an end-run around on our anabolic steroid ban, and so I was very interested in proving that.”

Palmer said he required New York-based Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds from the barns of indicted trainers to be placed on the stewards’ list, adding that other jurisdictions did the same. Specimen samples were taken, the horses had to be out of competition for about a month while analysis was performed, and then had to have workouts approved by a commission veterinarian and pass yet another drug test before they would be allowed to race for new conditioners.

This process took about 60 days total, and Palmer said that in New York, nearly 200 Standardbreds and almost 100 Thoroughbreds were tested twice in this manner.

“In the Thoroughbred breed, 77% of those horses [initially] had levels of clenbuterol in their blood,” Palmer said. “[We then] asked for the medical records on these horses. We haven’t gotten through them all yet, but we haven’t found any that had clenbuterol administration listed in their medical records. That’s a strong indication that this drug is being given for purposes other than the normal prescribed reason for giving clenbuterol.”

After years of speculation, Palmer said, “we had concrete evidence that clenbuterol was being widely abused in the Thoroughbred horses.”

Armed with that information, the Mid-Atlantic alliance of racetracks, horsemen’s groups and regulators set about making the case for stricter clenbuterol regulations.

“It’s going to be introduced in New York shortly, and it’s going to be widely adopted in the Mid-Atlantic region,” Palmer said.

Also during Wednesday’s press conference, the alliance announced that the equine fatality rate in the region has dropped from 1.78 per thousand starts in 2019 to 1.21 per thousand to date so far this year, a decrease of 33%.

“It is heartening to see that the commitment and hard work of so many in the Mid-Atlantic is bearing fruit,” said Alan Foreman, the chairman and chief executive officer of the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. “We have representatives from every faction of the Thoroughbred industry in the region at the table. Everyone has the chance to be heard and their specific issues considered. We are proud to say that, working together, we have been able to make significant advances on issues of medication reform and horse health.”

Among those changes, every state in the Mid-Atlantic alliance has adopted the following reforms:

  • A prohibition on non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) “stacking” (the use of more than one NSAID in the week of a race).
  • Transfer of joint injection records for claimed horses.
  • Necropsies on equine fatalities and a mortality review board.
  • Voidable claim rules.

Additional reforms have been implemented in all states except West Virginia, including:

  • 48-hour withdrawal time for NSAIDs.
  • Enhanced penalties for NSAID overages.
  • 14-day withdrawal for joint injections

There is a strict prohibition on the use of bisphosphonates in all horses under the age of four throughout the region, with a total ban in place in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

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