The delay in imposing the ban was put in place in order to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest because many of the trainers are pointing horses to races run at the Meadowlands during November in which they could meet horses owned by Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural. The delay will also give owners time to transfer their horses to new barns.

The Meadowlands requested access to evidence presented during the trials of Dr. Seth Fishman and one of his assistants, Lisa Giannelli. Fishman was sentenced to 11 years in prison and Giannelli was given a sentence of 42 months. They were among more than 30 people charged with crimes related to the use of performance-enhancing drugs on horses after a widespread investigation by the FBI and others.

Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural said that he has so far received information only from the Giannelli trial and predicted that when information from the Fishman trial is released far more names could be involved.

According to a press release issued Friday by the Meadowlands, the evidence obtained by the track revealed the identity of persons who had purchased prohibited substances Epogen and Thymosyn.

Those who will be excluded for the alleged use of EPO are Dylan Davis, Nick Devita, Gareth Dowse, Jeff Gillis, Brian Malone, John Mungillo, Eric Prevost, Richard Silverman, Leroy Slabaugh and Howard Taylor.

Those who will be excluded for the alleged use of Thymosyn are Ryan Bellamy, Anthony Buttitta, Franck Chick, Jamen Davidovich, Eddie Dennis, Brady Galliers, Rick Howles, Anthony Lake, Betty Jean Davis Lare, Kevin Lare, John Leggio, Gregg McNair, Cynthia Milano, Anthony Napolitano, Howard Savage, Arthur Stafford and Trevor Stafford.

Additionally and according to the Meadowlands press release, the Federal government conducted its own collection of blood and urine samples from racehorses, both post-race and from out of competition testing, during its investigation. Six individuals allegedly had horses test poistive for banned substances and also will be excluded from the Meadowlands. The following is a list of those individuals and the drugs their horses allegeldy tested positive for: Al Annunziata (Propantheline); Jenn Bongiorno (Ethamsylate); Bob Bongiorno (Ethamsylate); Scott DiDomenico (Ethamsylate); Jeff Gillis (Ethamsylate); Nick Sodano Sr. (Cobalt).

The 33 could face even more penalties as the information uncovered by the Meadowlands will be turned over to the various state racing commissions covering the tracks where the individuals compete.

Asked why there were no thoroughbred horsemen among the names uncovered by the Meadowlands, Gural speculated that Giannelli's clients were primarily Standardbred horsemen and that once names linked to Fishman are released they could involve thoroughbred trainers and owners.

Fishman, a Florida veterinarian, was sentenced for what United States Attorney Damian Williams said was due to “his role at the helm of an approximately twenty-year scheme to manufacture, market, and sell to racehorse trainers and others in the racehorse industry 'untestable' performance enhancing drugs for use in professional horseracing.”

While the evidence against Fishman was enough for him to be sentenced to 11 years in prison, the government's case didn't shed much light on who was buying what from Fishman and his company. The one exception was Jorge Navarro, who was directly linked to Fishman. In a Department of Justice press release it was revealed that “Fishman aided Navarro in doping XY Jet, a thoroughbred horse that won the 2019 Golden Shaheen race in Dubai before dying of sudden heart attack in January 2020. As established at trial, Fishman sold tens of thousands of dollars' worth of PEDs to Navarro over the course of several years, and Navarro specifically credited Fishman for XY Jet's performance at the Golden Shaheen.”

“The whole thing is terrible,” Gural said. “It's unfortunate. They lucked out that I kept the Meadowlands open, but their luck ran out because I am honest. We spent $2.5 million of our own money on this investigation. It's sad because there are people who had no choice but to cheat. They felt they had to feed their family and they couldn't win a race. What's really sad is Howard Taylor. He's not a trainer, he's an owner. He had to be giving EPO to his trainers to use and not a single trainer picked up the phone and said I have an owner who wants me to use EPO on his horses.  He has 150 horses and he uses a lot of trainers. You would have thought at least one trainer would have picked up the phone and told us what's going on.”

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Giannelli, 56, of Dalton, Delaware, was also ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 and to forfeit $900,000.

“This was not a one-time thing,” Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York) said at the time of sentencing. “For 18 years, Ms. Giannelli marketed and sold what she knew were illegal and powerful performance-enhancing drugs.”

Fishman, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison on July 11 after two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, has also appealed his conviction and penalties.

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Giannelli, 56, was found guilty of peddling illegal performance-enhancing drugs to trainers to dope horses and faced a maximum of five years in prison. Her lawyers appealed for a no-jail sentence of probation.

“This was not a one-time thing,” Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil said in U.S. District Court in New York. “For 18 years, Ms. Giannelli marketed and sold what she knew were illegal and powerful performance-enhancing drugs.”

Vyskocil said that with its verdict, the jury had rejected Giannelli's argument that she didn't know that what she was doing was illegal when she worked for Equestology, a Florida company owned by veterinarian Seth Fishman.

Giannelli, of Dalton, DE, was also sentenced to two years of supervised release after she gets out of prison. She was also ordered to pay a fine of $100,000 and to forfeit $900,000.

The government's investigation into the illegal use of PEDs to dope horses led to charges against 31 individuals. Since the charges were announced 30 months ago, Giannelli and Fishman have been convicted by juries, and 22 others have pleaded guilty. Fishman was sentenced in July to an 11-year prison sentence.

Those who have pleaded guilty include trainer Jorge Navarro. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Trainer Jason Servis was also charged and is awaiting a trial scheduled to begin in New York in January.

Prosecutors said Fishman had designed PED to increase a horse's performance and endurance by building red blood cells and masking pain. The substances were designed to avoid showing up in post-race tests conducted by racing regulators.

At the sentencing, Prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi said Giannelli's actions on behalf of Fishman's company warranted the maximum sentence.

“Her criminal conduct touched hundreds of trainers and led to the doping of thousands of horses,” she said.

She said Giannelli has yet to really accept responsibility for her actions and that it was only after the jury's verdict that Giannell offered a “mealy-mouthed explanation for her conduct.”

Giannelli came to court with 13 supporters. Among them was a man she married while under indictment and his mother.

“It was never my intention to break the law,” Giannelli said.

She said that her arrest and conviction have left her life shattered.

“It was never my intention to hurt anyone or to hurt any animal,” Giannelli said. “Everything in my world now is upside down.”

“At this point I wish I had never met Fishman,” she said.

“I thought I was doing good,” she added. “I never knew it was not legal.”

Defense lawyers pleaded for a sentence of probation in court papers that detailed Giannelli's troubled upbringing and her abusive relationships with men. She said she obtained a license to train horses at harness tracks. She said she met Fishman in 2004 and became his sales representative.

Lawyer Alex Huot said Giannelli was not doing anything she wasn't instructed to do by the doctor.

“She took Dr. Fishman at his word,” Huot said.

But Vyskocil told Giannelli she should have known better because the conduct she engaged in occurred when she was an adult.

The judge said Equestology's PEDs were powerful substances that she believed could have and did kill horses.

Vyskocil said that in fashioning her sentence took into account Giannelli's background, her character, and more than 50 letters from Giannelli's family and friends.

“The letters all reflect that you are a kind person, and have a passion to make things better,” the judge said.

At the end, she told Giannelli that she was sorry for her, for the situation that brought her to court.

“I do believe you are a good person,” the judge said. “You have your whole life ahead of you.”

Giannelli's surrender date is Jan. 9, 2023.

The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.

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Fishman, whose 26 months as a defendant have been hallmarked by minor courtroom dramas, various attempts to prevent or delay the trial, and accusations that he continued to peddle purported performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) while free on bail, had argued that he was tried twice for the same crime because the first count was contained within the second, much broader conspiracy.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of United States District Court (Southern District of New York) didn't see it that way. Her May 31 ruling against Fishman's motion paves the way for his June 30 sentencing, at which he faces up to 20 years in prison.

“Fishman now moves pursuant to Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure for acquittal on Count One, arguing that Count One is multiplicitous of Count Two,” Vyskocil wrote in her order. “That motion is DENIED because a rational trier of fact could find, based on the evidence at trial, that Fishman participated in two distinct conspiracies.”

Fishman, along with six other veterinarians, 11 trainers, and nine others, was charged in 2020 with being a key figure in an international network of purported PED suppliers who allegedly conspired to dope racehorses in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, and the United Arab Emirates.

Count One alleged a four-year conspiracy (2016-20) with Jorge Navarro, Erica Garcia, Marcos Zulueta, Michael Tannuzzo, Christopher Oakes and unnamed others. Count Two alleged a broad, 18-year conspiracy (2002-20) with Lisa Giannelli, Jordan Fishman, Rick Dane, Jr., and unnamed others based on Fishman's Florida online drug-selling portal.

Although a number of defendants in the wide-ranging racehorse doping conspiracy pleaded guilty prior to Fishman, he was the first to stand trial and to be found guilty by a jury.

“The defendant filed several pretrial motions, but he never argued that the Indictment was multiplicitous,” Vyskocil wrote. “The defendant also never raised the issue of multiplicity in connection with any of the Court's instructions to the jury at the trial. Indeed, the instructions relevant to this motion were jointly proposed by the defendant and the government…

“In charging the jury at the end of the case, the Court stressed that the Indictment contained two separate counts, that each count charged a 'separate' conspiracy, and that the jury was required to consider each count 'separately' and 'return a separate verdict on each count.' The Court explained that while there might be 'facts in common to different counts, each count must be considered separately.'

“The Court further explained that while '[m]uch of the law' applied to both counts, the Court would point out differences and 'provide specific instructions' about 'particular elements or findings,'” Vyskocil wrote. “The Court also instructed the jury that the Indictment charged the defendant with continuing the conspiracy charged in Count Two while he was released on bail.

“The Court stressed that whether the jury found Seth Fishman 'guilty or not guilty' of one charged conspiracy 'should not affect [the jury's] verdict' as to the other conspiracy charged in the Indictment. The defense consented to all of these instructions in advance, never objected to them during the trial, and never otherwise raised the issue of multiplicity with respect to the jury charges,” Vyskocil continued.

“The jury convicted Seth Fishman of both of the charged conspiracies, found that he had intent to defraud or mislead with respect to each conspiracy, and found that he continued the Count Two conspiracy after he was released on bail,” Vyskocil summed up.

Fishman's sentencing was supposed to be May 5, but got pushed back to May 26 when he claimed he did not receive financial forms from the feds that are necessary for his pre-sentencing report. Then he requested another new date after pandemic-related lockdown conditions were imposed upon the cell block where he is being detained in New York.

Previous legal maneuverings included the Florida-based veterinarian being inexplicably absent from court on the day that he was found guilty. A cryptic comment from Fishman's attorney to the judge during closing arguments led to speculation that Fishman had to be hospitalized.

In December 2021, Vyskocil had modified Fishman's bail conditions after federal prosecutors presented evidence that backed up allegations he was still selling PEDs while awaiting trial.

On two other occasions in 2020 and 2022, Fishman had unsuccessfully petitioned the court to adjust scheduling for pandemic-related reasons, at first arguing that his right to a speedy trial was being hindered, and then wanting to delay the trial over concerns related to not wanting to get sick with COVID-19.

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Which raises a question: why is he fighting this when it makes far more sense to go to the government and cut a deal that will result in less prison time?

Has Servis not been paying attention? So far, the government is undefeated, unscored upon and running up the score. They have gotten a number of people to plead guilty, including Jorge Navarro, who is rotting away in prison. Seth Fishman and Lisa Giannelli fought and took their cases to court and in both cases the jury didn't have time to order lunch before convicting them. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil, who is one tough cookie, has never shown so much as an ounce of sympathy for the dopers, alleged and otherwise.

Not that any of this should come as a surprise. Going to federal court and winning a criminal case brought by the federal government is nearly impossible. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, 90% of those indicted in federal cases in 2018 pled guilty. Eight percent of all cases were dismissed and 2% went to trial. The end result is that in 2018, only 320 of 79,704 total federal defendants went to trial and won their cases, at least in the form of an acquittal.

The government's m.o. is to build cases against defendants that are so solid that a conviction is all but assured. That's the case with Servis. They say they have numerous wiretapped phone conversations in which he talks about drugging his horses. In one, he was allegedly caught saying that he gave the drug SGF-1000 to virtually all of the horses under his care. In court, when pleading guilty, veterinarian Kristian Rhein implicated Servis, testifying that he sold him illegal, performance-enhancing drugs. The prosecution has done an excellent job.

What, then, could possibly be Servis's defense? I can't even begin to think of one. I'm not a lawyer, but isn't this the very definition of being caught red-handed?

Then there's the matter of legal fees. Servis has hired a big-time lawyer in Rita Galvin, who represented former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in his battle over sexual harassment charges. The meter has been running for a long time and there's no doubt that Lawyer Galvin gets a hefty fee for her services.

The longest sentence handed out so far has been the five years given to Navarro. But for Servis, it could be far worse. In a superceding indictment issued in November, 2020, the charges of mail and wire fraud conspiracy were added to the original charges of drug adulteration and misbranding. The maximum sentence for drug adulteration and misbranding is five years. The maximum sentence for wire and mail fraud is 20 years. Now facing a possible sentence of 25 years, the 65-year-old Servis may well spend the rest of his life in prison.

If he takes the case to trial, the government has no incentive to go easy on him. If he loses, he is going to go to prison for a long time. The 25 years, or something close to it, is a possibility. That's why he needs to cut a deal. Why not ask that the mail and wire fraud charges be dropped and agree to plead guilty to the drug adulteration and misbranding charges?

Yes, Servis is innocent until proven guilty. Yes, he is entitled to his day in court. But he's heading down a path that is no doubt going to dead-end in his being convicted. Does he not realize this? Did he, after so many years of allegedly doping horses and not getting caught, come to think he is a bulletproof? This is not going to end well for him.

Short Fields in Stakes Races

Six graded stakes races were conducted Saturday and four of them had five-horse fields. The other two were the GIII Peter Pan S., which featured eight runners, and the GIII Beaugay S., which had a field of seven. The average field size for the six races was 5.83.

The most glaring example was the GI Man o'War S. It had all the elements that normally attract decent sized fields. It's a Grade I, the purse is $700,000 and it's a grass race. Still, after a scratch, only five runners went to the post.

This is an on-going problem and it's getting worse all of the time. You're even seeing a race like the GI Apple Blossom H., worth $1 million, attract only five horses.

The foal crop keeps falling and the top horses have never raced more infrequently. But there's been no adjustment when it comes to stakes racing. We're left with a situation where there are too many stakes races and not enough horses to fill them. It might be a tough ask to ask tracks to eliminate a meaningful number of their stakes races, but that's exactly what needs to happen.

Alabama-Bred Siblings Duke It Out

You probably haven't been paying much attention to the Alabama breeding program, which has been hanging on by a thread since the Birmingham Turf Club closed years ago. But there still is such a thing as an Alabama-bred and with no racing in the state they occasionally show in special races carded just for them in Louisiana. That was the case Saturday night at Evangeline Downs, which produced a racing oddity. Three of the five starters in the $25,000 race were full-siblings. Two Mikes N Doc G, Liken It and Kellys the Boss are all by Doc N Bubba G out of the mare Ausbrook and were bred by Kent and Lisa Gremmels. They finished behind Foolish Steve (Mosquiot). Among the brothers and sisters, Two Mikes N Doc G fared best, finishing third.

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The jury of eight men and four women in U.S. District Court in New York returned the verdict after less than two hours of deliberations spanning two days.

Giannelli, 55, of Felton, Del., faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison at her sentencing Sept. 8 before Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.

The jurors rejected Giannelli's testimony in which she defended her actions selling medications for veterinarian Dr. Seth Fishman when she was his employee for 18 years at Florida-based Equestology.

As part of their verdict, the jury also agreed that Giannelli's intent was to defraud and mislead.

New York U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, “For almost two decades, Lisa Giannelli peddled untestable performance-enhancing drugs to give racehorse trainers the tools to dope racehorses. As a former standardbred racehorse trainer, Giannelli knew firsthand the dangers of selling illegal, injectable performance-enhancing drugs to trainers who were recklessly injecting horses to gain a competitive edge. The jury's swift conviction demonstrates the gravity of Giannelli's criminal scheme. This Office remains committed to holding accountable those who would engage in the kind of fraud and animal abuse exemplified by Giannelli's crimes.”

Giannelli stood at the defense table and turned towards the jury during the reading of the verdict. She was wearing a mask and had no visible reaction. She remains free on a $100,000 bond.

She rushed out of the courtroom with her husband.

“I'm disappointed,” defense attorney Louis Fasulo said. He plans to file a motion challenging the verdict.

The charges against Giannelli grew out of a lengthy FBI investigation into horse doping at Thoroughbred and harness race tracks two years ago that resulted in the indictments of more than two dozen people.

Just before announcing their verdict, the jury came to the courtroom to inspect a seized drug bottle that the government introduced into evidence during the trial.

The bottle was labeled BB3 which prosecutors said was a misbranded and adulterated PED designed to boost a horse's red blood cells.

Ten jurors walked past the bottle before two stopped to inspect the bottle with gloved hands.

“The government's case was very strong,” juror Joe Coughlan, 56, of Valley Cottage, N.Y., said after the verdict. “It was a preponderance of the evidence. I couldn't see any other verdict but guilty.”

Coughlan said it's “obviously not a good thing” that horses were being doped at race tracks.

“That amounts to cheating,” he said.

He said he had no idea how extensive the problem was until the trial.

“It's a sport and you've got bettors who are relying on everything being okay,” he said. “You want things to be above board. If they are not, what do you do?”

Prosecutors said the products Giannelli distributed for Fishman were illegal substances meant to enhance a horse's performance while being undetectable in tests conducted by racing authorities after races.

Fishman, a Florida veterinarian, was found guilty at his own trial in February. His sentencing is May 26.

Since the initial indictments, the number of defendants has grown to 31.

Of those 14 have pleaded guilty including two former harness trainers who became government witnesses against Giannelli.

Two other defendants agreed to deferred prosecution agreements.

Defendants with charges still pending include the prominent trainer Jason Servis, whose 3-year-old Maximum Security finished first in the 2019 Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) and then was disqualified for interfering with another horse during the race.

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“To tell my story,” she told the jury in U.S. District Court in New York.

She is on trial on a conspiracy charge, accused of assisting veterinarian Seth Fishman in the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs that prosecutors say were used by corrupt trainers to dope racehorses in violation of racing regulations.

During three hours of questioning by her attorney Louis Fasulo, Giannelli, who admitted being nervous when her testimony began, told the jury that it was never her intention to defraud any racing commissions.

She also testified that she never benefited financially when trainers decided to break the rules to win races.

And she testified that she never agreed with Fishman to engage in fraud.

“It was never my intention,” Giannelli testified.

The testimony came on the trial's sixth day in front of Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.

The trial resumes May 5 with closing arguments and then possibly jury deliberations.

Prosecutors say Fishman, who was convicted in February and faces 20 years in prison, manufactured PEDs that Giannelli sold out of her home as an employee of Fishman's company Equestology.

Giannelli testified it was her understanding she could sell whatever products Fishman created because he was a licensed veterinarian.

“I was just to take orders,” she told the jury. “I was not to give medical advice or offer a medical opinion or act as a veterinarian.”

Giannelli testified drugs she kept in her home that the FBI seized when she was arrested in 2020 were “items of Dr. Fishman that clients called in for as needed.”

She said Fishman manufactured his products without her help and that she knew little about them.

Gianelli also testified that she wasn't involved in designing labels for those products.

Asked then by Fasulo why another Equestolgoy employee sought her input on the color of a new drug bottle's cap, she replied, “Dr. Fishman was color blind.”

She also said that in conversations with Fishman it was hard to know what he was talking about.

Giannelli told the jury she didn't know what he meant when he told her about “stem cells” in a 2019 call that was wiretapped by the FBI.

“He is rambling and I was just like 'yeah,'” Gianelli testified. “Dr. Fishman rambled a lot.”

When asked why she sold drugs without any label on the bottle, she said, “That was a decision by my boss. It was what it was.”

On cross examination, prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi asked Giannelli if she knew the difference between prescription and non-prescription drugs.

“My employer did,” the witness testified, adding that she knows the difference now.

“But you didn't at the time?” Mortazavi asked.

“I know only know what Dr. Fishman told me,” Giannelli replied.

At another point, Mortazavi asked Giannelli if she had suggested new products for Fishman to make a Equestology.

“Yes,” the witness said.

“So now you are clarifying your testimony on direct in which you testified that you didn't suggest new products for Seth Fishman to make?” the prosecutor asked.

“Correct,” Giannelli testified.

At the start of the cross-examination, Mortazavi asked Giannelli about her days working as a groom and a trainer at harness tracks decades ago, before she began working for Fishman. Giannelli acknowledged her license was suspended when a horse tested positive for TCO2.

“It was a bicarbonate,” the witness testified.

“Is that baking soda?” Mortazavi asked.

“Bicarbonate is whatever bicarbonate is,” Giannelli told the jury.

   The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.

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Federal prosecutors called their final witnesses May 3 at the New York horse doping trial of Lisa Giannelli.

The end of the government's case sets the stage for what could be the trial's climax: Giannelli's testimony in her own defense. The trial resumes May 4.

The government's witnesses Tuesday included Adrienne Hall, a harness trainer who also testified against veterinarian Seth Fishman, whom prosecutors believe Giannelli conspired with, and a retired special investigator with the Pennsylvania Racing Commission.

Hall testified that after first reaching out to Giannelli she sent Fishman a text saying that she wanted to know if he could help her come up with “pre-race options” for a horse she had just acquired.

On cross-examination, Hall was quizzed about her deal with prosecutors in which she agreed to testify in exchange for a non-prosecution agreement.

“I was committed to help regardless of signing an agreement or not,” Hall told Giannelli's attorney Louis Fasulo.

She said she was testifying “because I believe this will help the sport, it will help the horses and we really need that today.”

“You care about the integrity of racing?” Fasulo asked.

“Very,” Hall replied.

“You were part of the problem and now you're the remedy?” Fasulo said.

Hall insisted she wanted the sport to change.

“I bought two bottles of VO2 Max from Lisa Ranger,” Hall told the jury of eight men and four women.

Hall testified the sale took place in 2019 and that she knew Giannelli at the time by her married name.

Prosecutors have described VO2 Max as an adulterated and misbranded PED designed to help a horse respire.

They showed the jury a June 2019 invoice for two bottles of VO2 Max and the $158 price. The return address on the invoice was Giannelli's home.

At another point, Fasulo seized on Hall's answer to a question in which she denied using PEDs out of greed.

In fact, she lost money, she testified.

“You did it to lose money?” Fasulo said.

“I did it to keep my horses,” she said.

The investigator who testified was Rita Noblett, who retired in 2021.

She said contraband medications were seized from trainer Silvio Martin during a search of his pick-up truck that took place in February 2020 at Parx Racing.

“He was coming through the gate and I asked him to pull over,” she testified.

She said the substances were Banamine, Butaject, and Dexium. Also seized were syringes and needles.

The medications were contraband because the bottles had no prescription labels.

Prosecutors said the bottles were found in a box with a shipping label addressed to Fishman at Giannelli's address in Delaware.

Noblett testified it took her days to reach Martin to interview him.

“I tried to get a hold of him numerous times,” she told the jury. “He never responded.

She said when she finally spoke to Martin, he said Fishman was his veterinarian at his private farm.

Noblett testified she thought it was odd that Fishman, who was from Florida, was the vet for Martin's farm in Pennsylvania.

“It didn't make sense to me,” she testified.

On cross-examination, the witness testified that Martin's private farm would not have fallen under the jurisdiction of the Pennsylvania Racing Commission.

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“You're not supposed to administer any drugs on race day,” Flynn, 32, told the jury on the trial's fourth day in U.S. District Court in New York.
Flynn is testifying for the government as a cooperating witness–the second cooperator to flip and testify against Giannelli who is on trial on a charge of conspiring to misbrand and adulterate drugs. The other cooperator was Ross Cohen, also a former harness trainer.

Cohen testified last week that he purchased performance-enhancing drugs from Giannelli. He also testified on cross-examination that he fixed horse races.

Prosecutors charged Flynn and Cohen two years ago as part of the government's sweeping crackdown on horse doping. Other harness trainers have been arrested in the case as well as several Thoroughbred trainers, veterinarians and those prosecutors say were distributors.
Flynn and Cohen pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in a bid for leniency at their sentencings.

Flynn was indicted on charges of conspiring to secretly administer performance-enhancing drugs to horses under his care.

He testified he became a licensed New York harness trainer when he moved to New York in 2009. He said in 2015 Richard Banca hired him as an assistant trainer at the Mount Hope Trainer Center in Middletown. Banca was among those nabbed in the horse doping case. He pleaded guilty last month and is scheduled to be sentenced in September.

Flynn began testifying late in the day and his testimony was cut short when court recessed for the day. He returns to the stand May 3.

The day's first witness was Food and Drug Administration veterinarian Dr. Jean Bowman who testified as a government expert witness on new animal drugs.

During her testimony prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi asked Bowman about a document that was found on Giannelli's computer during an FBI search. It was an inventory list of drugs available for purchase.

The list included a product called HP Bleeder Plus along with a description that it could “achieve the same results without the same side effects of Lasix.”

Prosecutors have said HP Bleeder Plus was a performance-enhancing drug. They said veterinarian Seth Fishman, Giannelli's boss at Equestology, was the product's manufacturer. In February, a jury convicted Fishman of creating PEDs that were used to dope racehorses and that were designed to avoid being detected in post-race tests.

With Bowman on the stand Mortazavi played for the jury a wiretapped conversation from three years ago in which a customer ordered a bottle of HP Bleeder from Giannelli.

“Okay,” Giannelli is heard saying.

“Just mail it,” the customer says to her.

“Okay,” she says.

Bowman testified the bottles of HP Bleeder that the FBI seized in raids in Pennsylvania and New York violated FDA rules.

“It's missing the prescription legend, the name of the veterinarian,” Bowman testified. “It lacks information on the manufacturer and the ingredients.”

On cross-examination, Giannelli's attorney Louis Fasulo tried to get Bowman to say that a veterinarian could compound drugs if he wanted to create his own product.

“He'd have to meet certain conditions,” the witness responded. She said it would be okay only to prevent an animal's death or suffering or when no other drug was available.

“And suffering would be up to the discretion of the veterinarian,” Fasulo said.

Bowman disagreed.

“I think there's a pretty good definition for what is meant by suffering,” she testified.

The give and take continued as Fasulo continued to press the topic, suggesting it would be okay for a veterinarian to compound drugs, if it involved the use of two approved drugs.

Bowman testified in that instance you didn't need to compound anything. You could just administer the two drugs separately.

On re-direct examination, Mortazavi asked Bowman about her answers to the drug compounding questions.

“Animal suffering wouldn't be running slow?” she asked.

“No,” Bowman replied.

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Former New York harness trainer Ross Cohen had testified that Gianelli had sold him performance-enhancing drugs that he used to secretly dope horses under his care.

He agreed to cooperate with the government after his arrest in 2020 in connection with the FBI's sweeping horse-doping probe.

The investigation led to charges against a number of individuals including the prominent trainer Jason Servis.

Under questioning by Giannelli attorney Louis Fasulo in U.S. District Court in New York, Cohen was asked about his cooperation agreement in which he admitted to fixing races years ago as well as to doping horses.

Fasulo wanted to know if that was his incentive for becoming a cooperator–to avoid being charged with bribery and facing substantially more punishment.

“My incentive was to try to make right for my wrongs and tell the truth,” Cohen said in response.

Under further questioning, he said it could have been an incentive but then wasn't sure.

“I guess it could have been,” Cohen testified. “I don't know if it was an incentive or not at the time.”

Giannelli is on trial for conspiring to distribute adulterated and misbranded performance-enhancing drugs which were intended to enhance the performance of horses competing at racetracks across the country.

She worked with Seth Fishman, a veterinarian found guilty in February of manufacturing PEDs that were purchased by trainers to dope horses. Prosecutors say Fishman's drugs were designed to avoid post-race testing.

Fasulo told the jury that when Giannelli worked for Fishman out of her home in Delaware, she didn't do anything wrong because her actions didn't involve criminal intent.

Cohen was reluctant to talk about his race-fixing past under Fasulo's probing, part of an effort to damage Cohen's credibility.

At first, Cohen testified he couldn't remember how many races he fixed by bribing drivers to hold their horses back.

“It was more than five, I don't think it was over 20,” he told the jury.

He also couldn't remember how many drivers he paid off, then admitted, “maybe 10.”

When questioned by prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi, Cohen said his cooperation deal doesn't prevent prosecutors from other jurisdictions from charging him with bribery.

He hasn't been sentenced yet and said it would be up to the judge to determine his punishment.

The day concluded in the afternoon with the prosecution reading into the record portions of a witness's testimony from the Fishman trial.

The witness was Courtney Adams who worked for Fishman as an office manager for five years. She was unavailable to testify against Giannelli.

In her testimony, Adams said that Giannelli helped with labeling Fishman products. Prosecutors contend some of those labels violated federal regulations.

“She would suggest edits so the client would know what the product was,” Adams said in her testimony.

During the reading, prosecutors also showed the jury a 2013 text in which Fishman said that Giannelli made over $250,000 in 2012.

During her cross-examination, which was also read into the record, Adams admitted to Fasulo that she didn't know if that was true or not.

The trial resumes Monday.

The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.

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