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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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Cohen Cross-Examined As Giannelli Trial Recesses for Weekend

Day three of Lisa Giannelli's horse doping trial Apr. 29 featured the cross-examination of a key government witness.

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.

The post Cohen Cross-Examined As Giannelli Trial Recesses for Weekend appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Lisa Giannelli Trial Begins

Jury selection kicked off April 27 in the trial of a Delaware woman who prosecutors say helped veterinarian Dr. Seth Fishman supply illegal performance-enhancing drugs to trainers who used them to secretly dope horses to win races.

By day's end, a jury of eight men and four women was sworn in to hear the case against Lisa Giannelli in U.S. District Court in New York.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil scheduled opening statements for Apr. 28. The government has two FBI agents lined up to testify as their first witnesses.

Giannelli was in court for the jury selection.

One of the jurors chosen is a 60-year-old woman who said during voir dire that she has attended the GI Kentucky Derby “numerous times.”

Giannelli, of Felton, worked for Fishman and his Florida company Equestology as a sales representative. They were arrested two years ago following a lengthy FBI investigation into suspected backstretch horse doping that nabbed more than two dozen others.

Those charged included prominent Thoroughbred trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. Navarro pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to five years in prison. Servis is awaiting a trial that has been pushed back to early 2023.

Giannelli's case is being heard in the same courthouse where Fishman was convicted Feb. 2 on two counts of conspiracy to violate adulteration or misbranding laws after an 11-day trial. She is charged with one of those crimes.

Fishman and Giannelli have been the only ones in the case to take their chances at trial. There have been nine other guilty pleas since the arrests, including Navarro's.

Giannelli was to be tried with Fishman, but after opening statements and testimony from the government's first witness, a mistrial was declared in her case after her lawyer Louis Fasulo tested positive for COVID-19, preventing him from proceeding.

She faces five years in prison if convicted. She is free on $100,000 bond.

At a conference Apr. 25, Fasulo said his client would be testifying in her own defense. He also said she would be his only witness. Fishman didn't testify, and his lawyers called no other witnesses.

Fasulo told Vyskocil that he was “100% certain” Gianelli would take the stand.

“I never make that commitment, but we know it's going to happen,” he said.

In court papers last month, prosecutors spelled out their case against Giannelli.

They said she had traveled to racehorse training facilities in the northeast U.S., offering to sell Fishman's drugs “on demand, without regard to the existence of any prescription, the medical need for such drugs or the legality (or propriety) of selling such drugs directly to racehorse trainers.”

In court papers, Fasulo has signaled his intent to put on a “good faith” defense.

“A person acts in good faith when he or she has an honestly held belief, opinion, or understanding that as part of her experience in the horse racing industry veterinarians were allowed to sell drugs they compounded or manufactured and it was the trainer's responsibility to follow withdrawal times, even though the belief, opinion or understanding turns out to be inaccurate or incorrect,” Fasulo wrote in a proposed instruction that he wants the jury to hear before it begins deliberations.

At the previous trial, Fasulo sought to distance his client from Fishman, a tactic he is expected to take this time around.

“We sit here today after hearing the government's opening statement that Lisa Giannelli is a lone wolf in a herd of sheep,” he said as he began his opening remarks to the prior jury. “This case will prove that Lisa was a sheep herded by the sheep master.”

Fasulo said then that Giannelli had been a groom and a trainer before she went to work for Fishman. He said they had worked together for 18 years.

Fasulo said his client had no ability to create the products that Fishman manufactured and had no ability to label them.

“She took no responsibility as to the products as they were presented to her, other than they were presented by a veterinarian who was licensed in the states in which she was dealing,” he said.

At the end of his remarks, he said they don't hide from the fact that Giannelli worked for Fishman.

“What the government found in her home were products given to her by Seth Fishman, the veterinarian, and you will hear that she believed those products to be okay to transport to others,” he said.

The trial is expected to last two weeks.

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

The post Lisa Giannelli Trial Begins appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Horse-Doping Trial: Former Fishman Employee Cites Non-Testable Products

A New York jury heard a full day of testimony Jan. 21 in the federal horse doping trial of Dr. Seth Fishman and Lisa Giannelli.

The entire morning and most of the afternoon featured a second day of testimony from a woman who worked for Fishman at his Florida business Equestology for five years.

Courtney Adams, 34, testifying from Florida via video conference, told jurors that Fishman and Equestology were all about “testability.” That meant creating “product” that couldn't be detected in post-race testing by horse racing authorities, she said.

During her testimony in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, prosecutors showed an email in which a veterinarian who was a client of Equestology asked about one of the products, equine growth hormone, and whether it was testable.

“That was our biggest selling point, that he specialized in making product that wasn't testable,” Adams testified, referring to Fishman.

The witness, who had been an Equestology office manager and then a sales rep, said that Fishman told her there was a risk of regulators coming up with a test to detect the substance. If that happened, Fishman said he would have to create another product that would be undetectable, she said.

“That was the whole point of that product to be not testable,” Adams testified.

Fishman and Giannelli face conspiracy charges in a wide-ranging scheme to dope horses with performance-enhancing drugs to boost the treated horses' chances of winning races. Those charged include prominent trainer Jason Servis, who has maintained a not guilty plea and is awaiting trial. Others, such as trainer Jorge Navarro, have pled guilty and been sentenced.

Prosecutors say the accused were motivated by greed to win races and acted without regard to the welfare and safety of horses.

While on the stand, Adams admitted helping to mislabel products that Fishman created for clients around the country and in the United Arab Emirates. She said she also shipped vials of product without any labels.

Under questioning by prosecutor Andrew Adams, the witness said that she knew “in general terms” that some of those who purchased Fishman's drugs were horse trainers.

“He would discuss why they wanted them and why they were being used by them,” she testified.

“And did he say why they were being used by trainers?” the prosecutor asked.

“He said they were being used because they were untestable,” Adams replied.

The jury also heard the witness cite the names of some of the drugs Equestology sold.

Those products included Endurance, Bleeder, Hormone Therapy Pack, HP Bleeder Plus, and PSDS.

Adams testified that PSDS stood for Pain Shot Double Strength, describing it as a “double strength product for pain.”

She indicated she didn't know what the other substances were for.

Adams said she stopped working for Equestology in 2017.

“I was over it to be honest,” Adams testified. “I didn't want to do it anymore.”

As she left, Fishman asked her not to discuss their business with anyone, Adams noted.

“I said okay,” she said.

She said in 2018 investigators with the Food and Drug Administration approached her to ask about Fishman. She said she wasn't comfortable talking to them without a lawyer.

After Fishman, Giannelli, Servis, and about two dozen others connected to horse racing were indicted in March 2020 in the doping case, Adams said a friend sent her a link with a story about the arrests.

She said after reading it she contacted law enforcement.

“I read the story, and I realized they didn't have the whole story, and I felt obliged to give it to them,” Adams told the jury.

She said as a result of the information she provided, government lawyers offered her a non-prosecution agreement.

During cross-examination, Fishman's attorney Maurice Sercarz sought to suggest that Adams was motivated to contact law enforcement out of personal animosity against Fishman.

She admitted that before she left Equestology, Fishman had accused her of theft and using Equestology funds to purchase personal items.

She told Sercarz she was upset about those accusations “because they were false.”

During his cross-examination, Giannelli's attorney, Louis Fasulo, questioned Adams about whether she would work at a place that put horses in danger.

No was her response.

Adams also said she didn't think she was breaking the law when labeling products she said were mislabeled.

Toward the end of the day, Long Island retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent Angela Jett took the stand to read from notes of an interview she conducted with Fishman in 2010.

Jett said she had interviewed Fishman as a potential government witness in a $190 million securities fraud case. That case involved a magnate named David Brooks and a body-armor company he owned on Long Island. Fishman worked for Brooks, an owner of Standardbred racehorses that competed in New York and elsewhere.

According to the notes, Fishman told Jett that he had supplied performance-enhancing drugs to Brooks, who administered them to horses before racing.

Brooks was found guilty in 2010 of charges connected to the fraud and died in prison while serving a 17-year prison sentence.

Under cross-examination by Sercarz, Jett acknowledged that her notes don't say whether Fishman learned of the doping at the time it occurred or “after the fact.”

He also pointed out that Jett's notes show that when Brooks asked Fishman to dope a horse, Fishman refused.

Fishman's admissions to Jett never led to charges.

The trial resumes Jan. 24.

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

The post Horse-Doping Trial: Former Fishman Employee Cites Non-Testable Products appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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