Lisa Giannelli | Horse Racing Free Tips

The Week in Review: Just What is Jason Servis Thinking

A Jan. 23 trial date for the Jason Servis case was announced last week, which means in about eight months there will be some closure and Servis will learn his fate. The way he has handled things, it seems that he is at least somewhat optimistic that he will be found not guilty. If so, he is deluding himself. Everything about this case says that he has virtually no chance of being acquitted.

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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Guilty Verdict for Lisa Giannelli

The federal government's crackdown on horse doping notched another courthouse win May 6 with a jury finding Lisa Giannelli guilty of conspiracy to misbrand and adulterate drugs after an eight-day trial.

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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Giannelli Trial Continues

Lisa Giannelli testified at her horse doping trial May 4 that she had a good reason for wanting to testify in her own defense.

“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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Final Witnesses on Stand in Giannelli Trial

by Bill Finley and Robert Gearty

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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