Drug Company Sales Director Michael Kegley Sentenced To 30 Months In Prison

Former MediVet sales director Michael Kegley, Jr. was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison Jan. 6 after he entered a plea of guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding in the ongoing case around a series of racehorse doping rings, reports the Thoroughbred Daily News. Among the misbranded and adulterated performance-enhancing drugs marketed and sold by Kegley was “SGF-1000.”

During his plea hearing in July, Kegley stated: “Beginning in 2016, I was an independent contractor for a company, MediVet Equine. We sold a variety of products, including SGF-1000. I sold these products to veterinarians, horse trainers. When I did that I knew there was no medical prescription for those products. Also at the time, I knew that the product was not manufactured in an FDA approved facility, nor was it approved for sale by the FDA.”

Kegley's brother-in-law, Dr. Kristian Rhein, received a three-year prison sentence on Wednesday for his involvement in the same case. Trainer Jorge Navarro was last month sentenced to five years in prison.

The sentence requires Kegley to forfeit $3,310,490, equal to the amount of the illegal substances the government seized, but a court order states that if he makes the payment within two years of his prison release he will only need to pay $192,615.

According to the allegations contained in the Superseding Information, the prior Indictments[1], other filings in this case, and statements during court proceedings:

The charges in the Navarro case arise from an investigation of widespread schemes by racehorse trainers, veterinarians, performance-enhancing drug (“PED”) distributors, and others to manufacture, distribute, and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs and to secretly administer those PEDs to racehorses competing at all levels of professional horseracing. By evading PED prohibitions and deceiving regulators and horse racing officials, participants in these schemes sought to improve race performance and obtain prize money from racetracks throughout the United States and other countries, including in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, and the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”), all to the detriment and risk of the health and well-being of the racehorses. Trainers who participated in the schemes stood to profit from the success of racehorses under their control by earning a share of their horses' winnings, and by improving their horses' racing records, thereby yielding higher trainer fees and increasing the number of racehorses under their control. Veterinarians and drug distributors, such as Kegley, who worked as the director of sales for an unregistered distributor of equine drugs, profited from the sale and administration of these medically unnecessary, misbranded, and adulterated substances.

Among the misbranded and adulterated PEDs marketed and sold by Kegley was the drug “SGF-1000,” which was compounded and manufactured in unregistered facilities. SGF-1000 was an intravenous drug promoted as, among other things, a vasodilator capable of promoting stamina, endurance, and lower heart rates in horses through the purported action of “growth factors” supposedly derived from sheep placenta. Despite marketing, selling, and administering SGF-1000, Kegley acknowledged in intercepted calls that he, along with a co-defendant involved in the sale of SGF-1000, did not know the actual contents of SGF-1000. Nevertheless, Kegley's sales of that drug persisted, aided by the claim that SGF-1000 would be untestable in horses by law enforcement.

Read more about SGF-1000 in our previous reporting here and here.

Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

The post Drug Company Sales Director Michael Kegley Sentenced To 30 Months In Prison appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Veterinarian In Federal Drug Case Gets Three Years In Prison

Former veterinarian Dr. Kristian Rhein was sentenced to three years in federal prison Jan. 5 after he entered a plea of guilty to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding in the ongoing case around a series of racehorse doping rings.

U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ordered Rhein to surrender himself before 2 p.m. on March 7 to begin his sentence, which the court recommended he serve at FCI Otisville or “as close to New York as possible.” Rhein was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine in addition to $729,716 in restitution to victims of his offense. As with previous defendants, public-facing court documents do not reveal exactly who the “victims” of his crimes are, or how restitution will be distributed to them. Schedules for restitution payments with previous defendants have been filed under seal. He may share responsibility for that restitution amount with other co-defendants, in the event others are ultimately ordered to pay restitution on the same count of the indictment.

Rhein had previously agreed to forfeit the proceeds he took in from his offense, which total $1,021,800. Previous orders from the court required he pay more than half that total before his sentencing hearing.

Rhein was a racetrack-based veterinarian operating primarily in New York, where he was accused of giving horses clenbuterol without valid prescriptions and selling SGF-1000 to trainers, including co-defendant trainer Jason Servis. Rhein was later revealed to own a share in MediVet Equine, which sold SGF-1000. Intercepted communication between Rhein and others revealed he did not know exactly what was in the substance, except that he was confident it was untestable.

Read more about SGF-1000 in our previous reporting here and here.

MediVet sales director Michael Kegley changed his plea from not guilty to guilty last summer, around the same time as Rhein. He is due to be sentenced Jan. 6.

The post Veterinarian In Federal Drug Case Gets Three Years In Prison appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

After Judge Denies Motion To Dismiss, Navarro Expected To Change Not Guilty Plea

Trainer Jorge Navarro will likely become the latest in a string of federal defendants changing his not guilty plea, according to documents filed late Friday in an ongoing illegal drugs case. A change of plea hearing for Navarro is set for Aug. 11 before U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. Navarro is charged with two felony counts of drug adulteration and misbranding related to what prosecutors say is a complex ring of veterinarians, drug makers, and suppliers who worked together to manufacture, sell, distribute and use illegal medications to dope racehorses.

The federal case file does not indicate whether Navarro will change his plea in one or both counts.

Also on July 30, Vyskocil filed an order denying a series of motions from Navarro and other defendants to dismiss the charges against them. Several defendants had argued that they could not be charged under federal drug misbranding laws, in part because they did not commit those violations and in part because prosecutors could not identify legitimate victims of their alleged crimes.

Vyskocil asserted in her order that prosecutors were accusing the defendants of a conspiracy to commit violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and that the alleged failure to identify specific and relevant victims of the crimes at hand does not constitute a valid reason to dismiss the case. Prosecutors have depicted the FDA and Customs and Border Protection as victims of the crimes, along with state racing regulators, since the misbranding and use of the drugs were designed to deceive and evade those agencies. Vyskocil stated those were appropriate and proper victims of the crimes alleged.

Some defendants had also tried to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the Horseracing Integrity land Safety Act (HISA) would soon supersede the authority of the FDA in horse racing under the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Vyskocil also did not find that argument compelling, pointing out that HISA has not yet been enacted (it's scheduled to go into effect on or before July 2022) and that legal precedent cautions against the assumption that one new law will automatically alter authorities granted by a previous law. Besides, Vyskocil pointed out, HISA is not concerned with the misbranding of drugs, but rather the use of drugs in horse racing. The former is the basis for the federal charges against Navarro and his co-defendants.

[Story Continues Below]

On July 23, federal defendant Michael Kegley altered his plea to guilty in the case, admitting he marketed and sold adulterated substances to trainers and veterinarians, knowing there was no valid prescription for them and that they were not made in a FDA-approved facility. Earlier this week, a change of plea hearing also appeared on the docket for Dr. Kristian Rhein, who was alleged to help distribute SGF-1000, one of the drugs marketed by Kegley.

The post After Judge Denies Motion To Dismiss, Navarro Expected To Change Not Guilty Plea appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Veterinarian Kristian Rhein To Change Plea In Federal Doping Case

Kristian Rhein, a veterinarian formerly operating out of Belmont Park who was among the 27 individuals indicted in the March 2020 racehorse doping scandal involving Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, has been granted a change-of-plea hearing on Aug. 3, according to the Thoroughbred Daily News. Rhein originally entered a plea of “not guilty,” and is expected to alter that plea.

The indictment maintains the group was involved in “a corrupt scheme to manufacture, create, purchase, distribute, transport, sell and administer a wide variety of misbranded and adulterated PEDs.”

Rhein, drug distributor Michael Kegley, Jr., Dr. Alexander Chan, assistant trainer Henry Argueta, and Navarro are named together on a charge of drug adulteration and misbranding related to the use of SGF-1000.

On July 23, Kegley entered a guilty plea to one count of drug adulteration and misbranding in United States District Court (Southern District of New York) as part of a plea bargain agreement.

According to the original indictment, Kegley sold SGF-1000 to Rhein, and federal prosecutors have Rhein on tape bragging about selling “assloads” of the illegal performance-enhancing drug.

Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

The post Veterinarian Kristian Rhein To Change Plea In Federal Doping Case appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Source of original post

Verified by MonsterInsights