Jason Servis | Horse Racing Free Tips

Zulueta Joins Growing List of Plea-Changers in Doping Case

Marcos Zulueta, the now-barred Thoroughbred trainer facing two felony charges in the alleged nationwide horse-doping conspiracy case, appears on the verge of joining the growing list of defendants flipping their initial “not guilty” pleas to “guilty.”

On Thursday, Zulueta, formerly based in the mid-Atlantic region, was granted an Oct. 15 change-of-plea hearing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York).

If Zulueta does indeed end up pleading guilty, his flip will be the eighth in the wide-ranging case that initially included 28 defendants listed in the original indictment from March 2020.

Although not considered a “headline” trainer like fellow defendants Jorge Navarro (who has admitted to doping horses and faces five years in prison when he is sentenced in December) or Jason Servis (who maintains he is not guilty and has a trial date approaching in 2022), Zulueta's name surfaced frequently in wire-tapped conversations secretly recorded by federal investigators before they charged him with one count of drug adulteration and another for conspiracy to defraud using misbranded drugs.

According to a trove of phone conversation transcripts released as evidence by the government in September court documents, on Apr. 3, 2019, Zulueta and Navarro allegedly discussed the testability of a drug administered to the elite-level sprinter X Y Jet (Kantharos), who was trained (and admittedly doped) by Navarro.

X Y Jet died suddenly eight months after that call while still under Navarro's care. The circumstances of the horse's death have never been fully explained.

In another conversation between Navarro and Zulueta from around the same time frame, Navarro and Zulueta allegedly discussed a performance-enhancing “drench” that Navarro described as “a milkshake that…won't show up” that is to be administered “the day of the race.”

At one point, Navarro allegedly boasted, “Marcos I drenched two today and [the creator of the substance] says you can take their blood and nothing will come out,” unlike other drenches where “they catch you.”

During another wire-tapped call, Zulueta allegedly cautions Navarro about the dangers of winning too often with doped horses.

“Yeah, you should be happy-happy-happy that you are not winning all of them,” Zulueta allegedly said, according to the transcript. “Otherwise, you will be arrested.”

Zulueta's words ended up being prophetic: On March 9, 2020, both trainers, plus 26 others, were taken into federal custody in a coordinated series of arrests.

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PED Formulator Faces Three Years in Prison

The doping conspiracy case that has been winding through the federal court system since March 2020 netted its seventh guilty plea Wednesday when a 63-year-old Massachusetts man with a doctoral degree in cancer-related toxicology admitted to a judge that he mixed formulas that sometimes included steroids and shipped them in unlabeled vials to a Florida veterinarian who allegedly sold them to racetrack clients.

By pleading guilty Oct.6 to one count of drug adulteration and the misbranding of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), Jordan Fishman now faces three years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000 when he gets sentenced Feb. 8.

Appearing via videoconference in United States District Court (Southern District of New York) to change his previous pleading of “not guilty” as part of a plea agreement, Jordan Fishman also directly implicated Seth Fishman, the Florida veterinarian who is a co-defendant in the case and has a trial scheduled for January.

Jordan Fishman said Wednesday that between 2017 and his arrest in March 2020, “Seth Fishman provided the materials and formula requests. And then I made the solutions consistent with those formulas.”

Jordan Fishman said the various substances he created contained vitamins, amino acids, nutraceuticals, and, at times, steroids.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil did not ask Jordan Fishman to elaborate on the steroid aspect of the PED creation process. But she did want to know if he was aware the substances were to be used on racehorses.

“At the time I did it, I was not aware that they were going to be used on Thoroughbred racehorses,” Jordan Fishman said. “I knew that Seth had a [veterinary] business that involved that. I knew that the FDA was fielding complaints about Seth Fishman, and I should have looked into that further.”

The judge also wanted to know specifically why the vials were not labelled with their contents.

“Seth had requested that he be allowed to label them,” Jordan Fishman said. “And I should have known the he was doing something illegal. Obviously, it was to conceal it from whoever Seth [would] sell them to … I knew that I was not licensed to be able to move this material to Seth in interstate commerce.”

Jordan Fishman said that sometimes these PEDs got shipped outside of the country, although he was not pressed by the judge to provide specifics on those destinations.

“When I sent these items in interstate commerce, I knew that that was illegal. And I should have known it was something I shouldn't have done,” Jordan Fishman said.

The judge wanted to know if the two Fishmans are related. Jordan said they are not, but that they have known each other professionally since 2008.

Although it was not discussed during Wednesday's criminal proceedings, the two Fishmans have previously squared off in court.

TDN has obtained a copy of a federal lawsuit filed in May 2020 by Seth Fishman against Jordan Fishman and his Massachusetts-based company, 21st Century Biochemicals, Inc.

That suit–which was filed about a month after the two pled not guilty in the doping conspiracy case–alleged that Seth Fishman made $1 million in loans to Jordan Fishman's company over a period of years, and that in addition to allegedly not getting paid back, “Jordan, acting as the [president and majority shareholder of the firm], has also engaged in a scheme to defraud Plaintiff of his money.”

That case never went to trial. Both parties agreed to have it dismissed after reaching a settlement that involved the company paying $275,000 to Seth Fishman.

The alleged international “corrupt scheme” to manufacture, mislabel, rebrand, distribute, and administer PEDs to racehorses all across America and in international races began with a blitz of coordinated Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests nationwide on Mar. 9, 2020. All of the defendants initially pled not guilty, but plea changes have rolled in over the past year as the cases get closer to trials.

The veterinarian Scott Robinson was the first to be sentenced in March 2021. He got 18 months in prison and had to forfeit $3.8 million in profits.

In June, Sarah Izhaki was sentenced to time already served plus three years of supervised release for selling misbranded versions of Epogen.

Scott Mangini, a pharmacist who admitted to creating custom equine PEDs, got sentenced Sept. 10 to 18 months in prison, plus an $8.1-million forfeiture.

Michael Kegley Jr., a contractor for the Kentucky-based MediVet Equine, pled guilt to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding. He is to be sentenced Nov. 22.

Kristian Rhein, a suspended veterinarian formerly based at Belmont Park, has pled guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding for use in the covert doping of Thoroughbred racehorses. As part of a plea bargain, he has agreed forfeit $1.02 million in profits plus pay $729,716 in restitution. He is to be sentenced Dec. 2.

The barred trainer Jorge Navarro has pled guilty to one count of conspiring to administer non-FDA-approved, misbranded and adulterated drugs, including PEDs that Navarro believed would be untestable and undetectable. Navarro faces a maximum prison term of five years when he gets sentenced Dec. 17. Navarro's plea deal also stipulates that he must pay $25.8 million to a list of victims that has not yet been made public.

A number of others still have their cases pending. Among them are the barred trainer Jason Servis, whom the feds allegedly recorded in wiretapped phone conversations discussing the doping of Maximum Security, the former $16,000 maiden claimer who crossed the wire first in the 2019 GI Kentucky Derby but was disqualified for interference

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Legendary Handicapper, Turf Writer Steve Crist Joins Writers’ Room

Revolutionary handicapper and racing writer Steve Crist has been out of a public eye after retiring five years ago, but still has as much passion and enthusiasm for racing as he's ever had, and Wednesday morning, he joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland for an expansive discussion on a variety of industry issues. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Crist discussed his increasing involvement in the game from an ownership standpoint, racing's progress on detecting and punishing cheaters, the Bob Baffert saga of 2021 and much more.

Asked for his reaction to the FBI indictments of Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro and the potential enactment of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, Crist said, “The Servis/Navarro stuff, I think every horseplayer knew that these guys were cheating. This was not exactly something you were shocked to learn; you knew what these guys were doing, with the routine form reversals and the accompanying floods of money on their horses. I'm delighted that racing finally went after actual cheaters, instead of continuing to dither about Lasix and accusing every prominent trainer who wins at 25% of cheating. These are two different things, and I hate to see racing having wasted so much time on issues like Lasix instead of going after real cheaters.”

Crist mainly spent his career as a horseplayer and writer, but now owns a handful of horses, and spoke about how that's changed his perspective on the game.

“I've got to say, it's been more fun than I expected,” he said. “It really is. There's a different kind of enjoyment and a different kind of rooting that goes on when it's your horses, I've thoroughly enjoyed that part of it. But I've also had my eyes even more opened to the fact that it's so difficult for people to stay in this game now. Unless you're a plutocrat or a super trainer, this industry had become very, very hard to make a living in. Our trainer, Phil Gleaves, retired at the end of the Saratoga meeting, in part because it's just so hard to make a go of it as a small stable these days. Hiring help, dealing with workman's comp, and all these other issues have made it really hard for smaller trainers to stay in business. That's not a healthy thing long term for the game. And I don't think we want to end up with 10 super stables and no small outfits in American racing. That's not going to be good.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, Legacy Bloodstock and Woodford Thoroughbreds, Joe Bianca and Bill Finley broke down the ramifications of Bob Baffert's loss in court Tuesday, reacted to the strong handle numbers thus far for 2021 and applauded Gulfstream for its suspensions of trainers for clenbuterol use. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version of find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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First Trial In Federal Drug Misbranding Case Will Likely Come In January

After a long series of delays, it seems the first trial in the federal drug adulteration and misbranding case may now come sometime in January 2022, per a status conference held on Sept. 15. Attorneys and defendants gathered both in person in the Southern District of New York and telephonically to coordinate scheduling for the first in a series of trials.

The defendants who remain in the active case (excluding those who have changed their pleas to guilty or those left off the superseding indictment in November 2020) have been divided into four groups delineating which will be tried together.

According to a document filed June 11, the groups are–

Group 1: Seth Fishman, Lisa Giannelli, Jordan Fishman
Group 2: Christopher Oakes, Marcos Zulueta, Rick Dane Jr.
Group 3: Dr. Erica Garcia, Michael Tannuzzo, Dr. Rebecca Linke
Group 4: Jason Servis, Dr. Alexander Chan

The case has been dogged with delays due in large part to the amount of evidence provided from federal investigators to the defendants, which now exceeds many terabytes and thousands of pages of information.

U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil heard arguments from defense counsel regarding the projected date for the first trial. Originally, she had expressed a desire to conduct the first trial sometime in late 2021, but attorneys for Group 1 had conflicts with other trials being held in December. She suggested a gap had opened up in her calendar for Nov. 3 of this year, but defense attorneys balked at the fast-approaching date, leading to some testy exchanges with Vyskocil. At one point, an unidentified man using the telephonic conference option to attend the hearing could be heard saying, “I don't like this judge” before being asked to mute his line.

Defense counsel moved that the trial be conducted sometime in January 2022, pointing out that the court had already agreed they would have 60 days prior to trial to review the list of the prosecution's expert witnesses. A Nov. 3 trial date would not allow 60 days to elapse as previously ordered.

Patrick Joyce, attorney for Jordan Fishman, also registered concerns about the amount of time defense would have to review the voluminous evidence.

“As this court is aware, this is an extremely complicated case,” said Joyce. “There are a lot of issues … we're not asking for an adjournment into infinity. We're not saying next July. We're asking for two months.”

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Vyskocil dismissed that concern, saying it was “not a valid reason to kick this trial” but the 60-day period of review already outlined was a good reason to delay until January. An exact date will be determined when the federal court releases its calendar.

“I do not control the trial calendar if we're still operating under these COVID-19 protocols, so I am telling you now that this case is going to trial in the first quarter,” she said. “I will request the earliest slot we can be given in the first quarter and we are going to trial. I am not going to listen to, 'Well I have something that's backed up.' … You are all on notice.”

Vyskocil did not rule on the various motions before her to exclude wiretap evidence collected by the FBI during Wednesday's status conference. Although she acknowledged considerable interest in the contents of exhibits traded in those motions, she said she could not make a determination on whether intercepted phone calls, emails, and text messages will be game at trial until the defense has had a chance to submit formal replies regarding the motions. Typically, a motion submitted by defense counsel generates a response from prosecutors, and then defense attorneys have a chance to file a formal response to the prosecution before it's considered that all arguments have been made. Vyskocil said the deadline for defense replies will be later this month, and she will endeavor to make a ruling as soon as all the arguments are in.

Read more about what we learned from new wiretap evidence in the U.S. Attorneys' response here.

A new status conference has been scheduled for Nov. 4 to allow attorneys to check in with the court regarding any remaining issues with discovery evidence.

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