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Harness Trainer Christopher Oakes Pleads Guilty

Disgraced harness trainer Christopher Oakes, who had close ties to Jorge Navarro, changed his plea to guilty Tuesday when appearing before federal judge Mary Kay Vyskocil via teleconference. In doing so, Oakes became the 10th person among the original 27 indicted in March 2020 for their role in a widespread scheme to use performance-enhancing drugs on Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds to enter a guilty plea.

Oakes, 57, pled guilty to one count of misbranding and drug adulteration with intent to defraud or deceive and faces up to three years in prison. He will be sentenced Feb. 17.

When asked by Vyskocil what he had done that made him guilty to the crimes he has been charged with, Oakes replied, “I purchased medications from Dr. Seth Fishman and Dr. Gregor Skelton and his assistant Ross Cohen and administered the medications to the horses in my care to gain an unfair advantage.”

Fishman, Skelton and Cohen are drug distributors also among the 27 indicted last year

Vyskocil went on to ask Oakes if he raced in New York. Oakes replied that he raced at Yonkers Raceway and admitted that he used the drugs on his horses that raced there.

Vyskocil then asked Oakes why he gave the drugs to his horses. He answered, “To try to get an advantage and, hopefully, things would do better.”

Oakes said the doping routine he had described began in early 2019 and concluded with his arrest in March, 2020.

According to the original indictment, Oakes played a central role in the doping of the Navarro-trained top sprinter X Y Jet (Kantharos), who died in January, 2020 under suspicious circumstances. The evidence against Oakes included conversations allegedly captured on wiretaps between Navarro and Oakes in which Oakes promises to supply Navarro with PEDs.

Oakes allegedly supplied Navarro with PEDs that were given to X Y Jet, including a “blocker” PED. On Feb. 13, 2019, the same day X Y Jet won an allowance race at Gulfstream, Navarro instructed Oakes to enter the Gulfstream backstretch to administer PEDs to the sprinter.

“Drive through,” Navarro allegedly told Oakes. “If anything, if they stop you. You are an owner and you come to Navarro's barn.”

The government also charged that Oakes “created and manufactured his own customized misbranded and adulterated PEDs known as an undetectable 'drench' that would rapidly increase a racehorse's performance during a race.” Oakes went on to tell Navarro “zero chance you get caught.”

According to the indictment, on March 14, 2019, law enforcement officers found multiple adulterated and misbranded drugs in Oakes' barn in Pennsylvania, including PEDs supplied by Fishman and Skelton. They also found pre-filled unlabeled syringes.

Oakes owned a handful of Thoroughbreds before his arrest and won 14 races. His horses were trained by Navarro. Oakes was a prominent harness trainer with 1,875 career wins. He was among several harness horsemen banned at the Meadowlands by owner Jeff Gural.

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Zulueta Enters Guilty Plea, Oakes Asks To Change Plea In Federal Drugs Case

Trainer Marcos Zulueta changed his plea from not guilty to guilty to a charge of drug adulteration and misbranding with intent to defraud during a hearing on Oct. 15. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil presided over the hearing, and set a sentencing date for Feb. 24 for the trainer, whose operation was based in the Mid-Atlantic.

Zulueta faces a maximum of three years in federal prison and fines of up to $100,000, in addition to a forfeiture of more than $47,000. Forfeiture amounts in this federal case have typically been based on the amount of financial gain prosecutors believe a defendant accrued from a crime.

According to a report by The Blood-Horse's Bob Kieckhefer, Zulueta did not provide many details on his crimes beyond admitting to administering drugs to racehorses without prescriptions at Parx. Zulueta said he got the substances from co-defendant Ross Cohen.

Zulueta Changes Plea to Guilty

Trainer Marcos Zulueta joined the growing list of those involved in the Jason Servis-Jorge Navarro doping scandal to change their plea to guilty. Zulueta did so Friday when appearing via teleconference before federal judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. In doing so, Zulueta became the ninth of 27 people indicted in March of 2020 to plead guilty.

Having pleaded guilty to adulterating and misbranding drugs with the intent to defraud or mislead, he faces up to five years in prison and will be sentenced in February.

In the original indictment, Zulueta was closely linked to Jorge Navarro and was alleged to be involved in the doping program that involved the star sprinter X Y Jet (Kantharos). However, Navarro's name was noticeably absent from most of Friday's proceedings. Instead, Zulueta spoke of his relationship with alleged drug distributor Ross Cohen when asked by Vyskocil to explain what he had done to justify his guilty plea. Cohen was among those indicted last year but his name was not included when a superseding indictment was announced last November.

“I misbranded medicine from Ross Cohen,” said Zulueta, who struggled with his English throughout the hearing. “I gave it to my horses for them to perform in training. I don't remember the specific days I gave it to the horses but I did it.”

Zulueta said he started using medications he got from Cohen in 2019, but said he stopped a few months later because he found that the drugs were having no impact on his horses. He made no mention of his dealings with Navarro.

“I realized that my horses weren't getting any better,” he said. “I didn't see any results. The last two or three months before I got arrested, I wasn't using it.”

When asked by Vyskocil whether, at the time, he knew what he was doing was illegal, Zulueta replied: “Yes, your honor. I am prepared to pay for the mistakes I have made.”

Representing the government, attorney Sarah Mortazavi told the court that investigators had compiled mounds of evidence to make their case against Zulueta and singled out evidence that Zulueta was using a drug called “monkey,” which has similar characteristics to epogen.

According to the original indictment, Zulueta was among those who where obtaining, shipping and administering misbranded and adulterated PED's for Navarro's benefit. The evidence included an intercepted phone call from February 2019 in which Navarro and Zulueta discussed Navarro's need for a customized PED referred to as a “blocker.” Zulueta assured Navarro he could get the drug for him.

On another occasion, Zulueta cautions Navarro about winning too often.

“Yeah, you should be happy-happy-happy that you are not winning all of them,” Zulueta allegedly told Navarro. “Otherwise, you will be arrested.”

Zulueta started training in 2011 and quickly became a force at Parx. In the few months in 2020 before his arrest, he had 18 winners from 58 starters, good for a winning rate of 31%.

Three individuals who have pled guilty have been sentenced. Scott Robinson and Scott Mangini each got 18 months and Sarah Izhaki got time served.

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Alleged Doper Oakes the Latest Defendant to Ask for Plea-Change Hearing

Christopher Oakes, a barred Standardbred trainer facing two felony charges in the alleged nationwide horse-doping conspiracy case, could be the ninth among 28 initially indicted defendants to flip his plea to “guilty” after having requested and been granted a plea-change hearing that on Tuesday got set for Oct. 20.

According to court documents, Oakes was the subject of two barn searches and numerous wiretapped phone conversations in 2019 in which he allegedly discussed helping the admitted doper Jorge Navarro procure and administer performance-enhancing drugs [PEDs] to be used on Thoroughbreds.

One of those horses that Oakes and Navarro allegedly conspired to dope was the elite-level sprinter X Y Jet, who died in late 2020 under murky circumstances that have never been fully documented or explained.

Navarro, who faces five years in prison at his December sentencing, has already pled guilty and specifically admitted in open court that he doped X Y Jet and other graded-stakes stars of his stable over a period of years.

A trove of phone conversation transcripts from 2019 disclosed as evidence in United States District Court (Southern District of New York) gives some clues as to the evidence that Oakes was facing had he instead opted to go to trial:

Jan. 25: Oakes, who allegedly “created and manufactured his own customized, misbranded and adulterated PED” known as an undetectable “drench” that would “rapidly increase a racehorse's performance during a race,” allegedly discusses doping options with Navarro in a phone call, telling him, “Zero chance you get caught.”

Feb. 10: Navarro allegedly texts to Oakes, “Do u have any of that new block the dr. makes [?]” Oakes allegedly agrees to procure and deliver it to Navarro for use on X Y Jet before a Gulfstream Park race. They later allegedly discuss obtaining various bottles of products, but do not discuss them in the context of veterinary treatments. Rather, the talk revolves around these products' effects on horses as being “really, really good,” of the type that “makes the blood that makes them stretch,” “stronger now and better” than “red acid,” which Navarro previously used.

Feb. 11: According to the indictment, Navarro and Oakes discuss a plan to secretly introduce a bottle of “blocker” into the Gulfstream Park barn where X Y Jet was stabled prior to a Feb. 13 race. Oakes confirms that he will smuggle that PED into the racetrack and meet Navarro inside.

Feb. 13: On race day for X Y Jet, according to the indictment, “Navarro instructed Oakes to visit X Y Jet to administer the PED, and to lie to racing officials if necessary to access the racehorse: 'Drive through. If anything, if they stop you, you are an owner and you come to Navarro's barn.'” X Y Jet then won that allowance sprint by 7 3/4 lengths at 2-5 odds.

Feb. 19: Oakes and indicted veterinarian Seth Fishman allegedly discuss supplying one of the products Fishman distributed, VO2 Max, to Navarro, with Oakes acknowledging that he removed the label from the drug before giving it to Navarro.

Mar. 10: Oakes allegedly directs an underling to retrieve a large number of “bleeder” pills (“grab like 30”). In another call, Oakes and another individual allegedly discuss “a whole bunch of drenches” that are in the “medicine room” of Oakes's barn.

Mar. 11: Oakes and another individual (who does not appear to be a veterinarian) allegedly discuss two New York-based Standardbreds scheduled to race in 48 hours who will get “blood shots” after they “train on Wednesday” and whether one of the horses “might really [expletive] blow up” because she has never received any drench or blood shot. They then discuss providing that horse with “the pills” and talk about a prior administration of a drench to one of the horses.

Based on those wiretapped conversations, federal investigators obtained a search warrant to surreptitiously search Oakes' barn on March 13, 2019. They collected samples of alleged drugs found therein, and conducted blood draws of two horses under Oakes' care that were scheduled to race two days later at a New York racetrack.

The Oakes barn was subsequently searched a second time in 2020 in conjunction with his arrest, according to court documents.

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