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Veterinarian Grasso Sentenced to 50 Months

Louis Grasso, a veterinarian who worked in the harness racing industry and was one of more than two dozen individuals indicted in 2020 for their role in a horse doping ring, has been sentenced to 50 months in prison and two years of supervised release. The sentence was handed down Tuesday by U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel in a lower Manhattan courtroom.

Grasso was also ordered to pay a forfeiture totaling $412,442.62 and restitution in the amount of $47,656,576. He must surrender to authorities on January 24, 2023, at which time he will enter prison.

Grasso was charged with one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy, a felony. He faced a maximum sentence of five years. Several other defendants in the doping case that have pled guilty received sentences in the neighborhood of three years. That Castel gave Grasso more than four years seems to reflect the severity of the charges against him.

The prosecution had maintained that Grasso's doping led to corrupt trainers collecting over $47 million in ill-gotten purse winnings.

In May, when Grasso entered a guilty plea, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District Court issued a press release in which U.S. Attorney Damian Williams commented on the Grasso plea as well as the guilty plea entered by harness trainer Richard Banca. Banca was sentenced to 30 months.

“Grasso and Banca represent the corruption and greed of those in the racehorse industry looking to win at any cost,” Williams said. “In peddling illegal drugs and selling prescriptions to corrupt trainers, Louis Grasso abdicated his responsibilities as a medical professional to ensure the safety and health of the racehorses he 'treated.' By injecting horses with unnecessary and, at times, unknown drugs, Grasso risked the lives and welfare of the animals under his care, all in service of helping corrupt racehorse trainers like Banca line their pockets through fraud. These latest convictions demonstrate the commitment of this Office and of our partners at the FBI to hold accountable individuals seeking to profit from animal abuse and deceit.”

In the indictment of Grasso, the government portrayed him as a central figure in a scheme to manufacture, distribute and receive adulterated and misbranded PEDs which were administered to horses. The government charged that Grasso and others delivered and received “at least thousands” of units of PEDs issued by pharmacies pursuant to invalid prescriptions. Banca was among his customers.

According to the indictment, Grasso was also manufacturing and/or selling “epogen,” pain shots of joint blocks, bronchodilators and a substance called “red acid.” Red acid is believed to reduce inflammation in joints.

It appears that Grasso's doping may have been restricted to harness racing as the indictment does not mention any illegal activities that involved Thoroughbred racing.

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Giannelli Gets Three and a Half Years in Prison

Lisa Giannelli was sentenced Sept. 8 to 3 1/2 years in prison as part of the federal government's sweeping investigation into horse doping at race tracks across the country.

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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Florida Vet Garcia Wants Plea Change to Avoid Doping Trial

Erica Garcia, a Florida-based veterinarian, broke off her longstanding business relationship with the now-imprisoned trainer Jorge Navarro in early 2019. But she remained in contact with other conspirators of the Thoroughbred doping scheme that Navarro-and numerous other racetrackers-would later admit to.

So when federal investigators began compiling evidence that led to a nationwide series of arrests in a widespread racehorse drugging crackdown in March 2020, Garcia was considered fair game for her alleged role in the pipeline of purportedly performance-enhancing drugs.

Charged with two felony counts involving conspiracies to commit drug alteration and misbranding and defrauding the United States government, in Garcia tried in 2021 to get a federal judge to suppress the evidence obtained from searches of her car and phone. It didn't work.

Now Garcia, 43, wants to join many of the 30 other defendants in the case who have either already changed their pleas or been found guilty by trial. On July 29 she requested a hearing before the judge to do explain why she wants to flip from “not guilty,” and that request was swiftly accommodated with an Aug. 1 court date.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil will preside over the hearing. She's the same judge who wrote the order that denied the suppression of evidence.

“Garcia argues that the physical search of her car, pursuant to a search warrant, was invalid because the application for the warrant contained 'stale' evidence,” Vyskocil wrote last year. “The Court rejects this argument because the affidavit for the warrant presented evidence that Garcia was long involved in an ongoing conspiracy.”

“The affidavit in support of the warrant for Garcia's car detailed her long-term relationship with Navarro and ongoing involvement with members of his doping scheme. It described at least six instances over the span of four months in which Garcia discussed with Navarro administering prohibited substances to racehorses,” Vyskocil wrote.

“The affidavit acknowledged that Garcia's relationship with Navarro deteriorated in early 2019,” Vyskocil wrote. “It explained that, nevertheless, Garcia remained in touch with other members of Navarro's network, including his assistant trainer.

“In the light of the evidence of Garcia's longstanding and continuing involvement in a doping operation, there was probable cause to search her vehicle, notwithstanding her personal break with Navarro,” Vyskocil wrote.

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Fishman Has Been Sentenced. Is That the End of This Story?

Having been convicted of two counts of drug adulteration and misbranding, with intent to defraud and mislead, Dr. Seth Fishman was sentenced Monday to 11 years in prison, by far the longest sentence handed down to anyone among the many people tied up in a far-reaching doping scandal that has shaken the Thoroughbred and Standardbred industries. He will soon call a federal penitentiary home, and for a long time. Good. He got what he deserved.

But is this the end of his story or a precursor to what's to come? Are the arrests of Fishman, Jason Servis, Jorge Navarro and some 25 others just the first chapter in scandal that will bring down dozens, maybe even hundreds, of others? Some say that is inevitable.

“I have no doubt there are many arrests pending,” Jockey Club Chairman Stuart Janney III said at the 2020 Jockey Club Round Table. “Fortunately they will happen, just not as soon as we would like.”

Despite Janney's assurances, nothing is certain here. Nothing is clear cut.

Fishman is a key figure. Surely, he was dealing performance-enhancing drugs to far more people than those who were targeted, indicted and convicted of doping horses by the federal government. It can't just be Servis, Navarro and a handful of others.

In February, a list of Fishman's clients was released. But that raised more questions than it answered. There were more than 2,000 individuals on the list, and virtually all of them were from the Standardbred industry. The list included hundreds of people whose integrity has never been questioned and who have spotless records. That may be because some of those whose names were on the list purchased legal medications from Fishman. We just don't know.

So the list did not answer the key question: who was buying performance-enhancing drugs from Dr. Fishman? Fishman may decide to answer that question, to tell all. Maybe he already has. Then again, maybe that's not necessary. Is there a paper trail of not only who he sold drugs to but which drugs? One would think that would be the case. There's also the case of Louis Grasso. Another veterinarian who dealt primarily with Standardbreds, he entered a guilty plea in May on the charges of one count of drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy. What does he know? Who, beyond those already caught up in the scandal, was he dealing his drugs to? Will we ever find out? Nailing a bunch of other cheats would seem to be a case of low-hanging fruit.

“I hope there will be more arrests and indictments,” said Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural, who has played a large part in the effort to catch the worst of the worst when it came to racing's cheats. “I would hope we will be able to find out who bought what from Fishman and Grasso. Because, clearly, they know who bought what. I am sure people bought legitimate medications, but I'm also sure others bought performance-enhancing drugs. I don't think this is the end of it at all.”

One school of thought is that the government is waiting, that it wants to first resolve all the cases against all the alleged cheaters from the original March, 2020 indictments. That includes Servis, who is set to go on trial in January. After Servis' trial is over and, if he is found guilty, and his sentence has been announced, maybe that's when there will be a fresh and lengthy list of additional horsemen, trainers and vets that have been indicted.

But here's another scenario, one that I believe is most likely.

The government probably already has a laundry list of people who bought PEDs from Fishman and Grasso. It wouldn't be hard to come up with one. And maybe Fishman and Grasso, in hopes of getting a lighter sentence, have cooperated with the authorities and named names. That's entirely possible, if not plausible. But that doesn't mean that the government has to act on that.

Does the government really want to use up even more resources on something, that in the grand scheme of things, isn't that big of a deal? Every minute they spend trying going after people who may have cheated in what is not a major sport is one less minute they can devote to going after drug dealers, money launderers, gang leaders and the likes of Ghislaine Maxwell. As much as we care about our sport and as much as we want to rid ourselves of the cheats, we really are small potatoes.

The hope is that there are a bunch more bad guys out there who are going to face the consequences for doping horses. I just don't think that's going to happen. Sure hope I am wrong.

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