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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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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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.

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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.

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Prosecutor Anden Chow began by telling jurors that the defendants had operated a black market drug conspiracy for two decades.

He said Fishman and Giannelli created hundreds of drugs that were used to secretly dope race horses.

The drugs they produced were undetectable in post-racing testing, Chow said, so that trainers who were their customers could increase their chances of winning races by committing fraud.

“For two decades they did their best to avoid getting caught,” the prosecutor said. “They were successful until today.”

Fishman and Giannelli went on trial on charges of conspiring to misbrand and adulterate drugs, including performance-enhancing drugs used to dope horses at tracks across the country.

The opening statements came after a jury of eight women and four men was seated in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Fishman and Giannelli were among more than two dozen trainers, veterinarians, and others busted in 2020 in what prosecutors say is the most far-reaching prosecution of racehorse doping in U.S. Justice Department history. Among those charged was prominent trainer Jason Servis, whose Maximum Security finished first in the 2019 Kentucky Derby (G1) but was disqualified for interference. Servis has maintained a not guilty plea and is awaiting trial.

Fishman and Giannelli listened attentively as Chow and their attorneys addressed the jury. Each is free on $100,000 bail.

Chow was the first to address the jury.

He said that the world of horse racing was a highly lucrative business, making it tempting for some to dope horses to get an edge. He said to guard against this regulators established rules on what substances can be administered to horses and when.

“Fishman and Giannelli sold drugs to get around these rules,” Chow said.

The prosecutor said Fishman and Giannelli, who was his associate, had “hundreds of clients” and were “paid millions of dollars.”

One of the drugs Fishman manufactured boosted red blood cells in horses to increase endurance, Chow said.

He said Fishman described this drug as “the Holy Grail” of drugs.

The prosecutor said Fishman was also obsessed with manufacturing drugs that would be undetectable in post-race testing.

Chow added one of Fishman's clients was trainer Jorge Navarro. He described Navarro as one of the sport's most successful trainers who ran a doping program that relied on Fishman and others.

Navarro has pleaded guilty for his role in the case and has been sentenced to five years in prison.

Chow told jurors that the government's case would include the testimony of trainers who bought Fishman's drugs, text messages, items seized as part of search warrants, and “the words of the defendants on wiretaps.”

During his opening statement, Fishman's attorney Maurice Sercarz said that when Fishman became a veterinarian, he swore an oath promising to always work for the benefit and health of horses.

“This is the calling he answered,” Sercarz said.

He added, “It will be for the government to prove that his intent and purpose was something other than limiting animal suffering.”

The defense attorney told jurors there is great beauty in racing, but there is an ugly side with too many owners and trainers willing to cheat.

Sercarz said it wasn't his client's intention to defraud or mislead anyone.

“The individuals who purchased substances and products from Dr. Fishman knew what they were getting,” he said.

Giannelli attorney Louis Fasulo said his client didn't do anything wrong. She believed the products Fishman manufactured were okay to deliver to others, he said.

He said Giannelli was a high school graduate dedicated to the well-being of horses.

“She went to work and fulfilled her responsibility,” Fasulo said.

After the opening statements, prosecutors called their first witness, Courtney Adams, for limited testimony before the trial's first day wrapped up. She worked for Fishman's business Equestology in South Florida from 2012-'16.

She said that during that time she saw Fishman treat animals “maybe once or twice.”

Prosecutors contend that Fishman's business was more about selling drugs than taking care of horses.

Her testimony resumes Jan. 21.

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

 

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Although no specific court order answering the motion had been filed prior to deadline for this story, a summary entry on the court docket describing what happened at a Jan. 13 pre-trial conference contained the notation, “Trial to begin January 19, 2022,” which is the originally scheduled start date.

In two highly redacted letters filed Jan. 12 in the United States District Court (Southern District of New York), both Fishman's attorney, Maurice Sercarz, and Giannelli's lawyer, Louis Fasulo, had written that they feared not only the possibility of contagion, but also the chance that any pandemic-related delays that happened once the trial got underway might end up causing a mistrial.

Reading between the lines of the redactions in both court filings, it appears as if someone–quite possibly one of the defendants–has contracted the virus.

The letter written by Giannelli's attorney contained a redacted portion of a sentence followed by the words, “which counsel learned on Jan. 8, 2022. Although her defense team is fully vaccinated and have received boosters, this is not a shield to the current variant, and it is certainly not a shield to testing positive but being asymptomatic…. Of immediate concern are the heightened risks to members of Ms. Giannelli's team.”

In arguing for an adjournment of the trial, Giannelli's lawyer had pointed out to the judge that nearby federal district courts in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey “have all suspended trials in the month of January,” but that New York's federal courts remain on schedule despite “the highest rate of infection [that] continues to surge upward.”

Federal prosecutors did not consent to the adjournment of the trial, although they were aware that the request was being made by the defense.

Fishman, a Florida veterinarian, is charged with two felony counts related to drug alteration, misbranding, and conspiring to defraud the government. Giannelli, who allegedly worked under Fishman (her exact role is disputed) faces the same two charges.

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