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Kentucky State Rep. Adam Koenig Discusses Breakage Bill On Writers’ Room

Breakage, the practice of rounding down bettors' payouts to the nearest 10 or even 20-cent number rather than paying the deserved amount to the penny, has long been a thorn in horseplayers' sides. Kentucky state representative Adam Koenig, an avid horseplayer himself, is trying to do something about it in his state. Wednesday morning, Koenig joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland as the Green Group Guest of the Week to discuss the bill he's sponsoring to eliminate breakage in Kentucky, as well as his proposed sports betting legislation, the successful effort to protect historical horse racing in the Bluegrass and more.

“Breakage laws go so far back that we can't even figure out when they were passed in Kentucky, but there was a time 100 years ago when the only place to go and legally make wagers was the racetrack,” Koenig explained. “The lines were deep and it was something done to make it easier to cash people out. They didn't have computer to figure out how much was being wagered. They were counting the money in the back and figuring out the odds by hand in real time. But obviously those days have come and gone, and it's time for our laws to reflect today's reality. Now we have an opportunity to do something about it, and this is going to be a comprehensive parimutuel wagering modernization bill.”

Koenig added that, especially in Kentucky with skyrocketing purses and the lucrative historical horse racing machines, accurately paying winning horseplayers is a matter of fairness.

“I live five minutes from Turfway,” he said. “Churchill Downs is building a beautiful facility there. They've got multiple facilities in Louisville. They've got a harness track in Hopkinsville. They're making plenty of money on the HHR facilities and I think, certainly on the breakage front, they can stand to help the bettors. We've taken care of the tracks. We've taken care of the breeders and the trainers and the jockeys. We need all of them to make the show run. But we also need bettors to make the show run. And by God, I'm going to take care of the bettors, not just because I am one, but because we need to take care of those folks without whom we don't have an industry.”

Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, Lane's End, West Point Thoroughbreds, XBTV, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders and Legacy Bloodstock, Joe Bianca, Bill Finley and special guest co-host Randy Moss of NBC Sports touched on Michael Beychok's decision to stop playing the horses, the beginning of the trials in the doping scandal, the proposed four-race campaign of Flightline (Tapit) and more. Click here to watch the podcast; click here for the audio-only version or find it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Defense Request to Delay Doping Trial a No-Go

A request by defendants Seth Fishman and Lisa Giannelli to delay next week's start of their trial in the alleged nationwide horse doping conspiracy because of COVID-19 concerns was not granted on Thursday by the judge handling the case.

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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Citing Pandemic, Defense Asks for Delay in Doping Trial

Attorneys for Seth Fishman and Lisa Giannelli, the first two defendants scheduled to face trial on Jan. 19 in the years-long alleged international horse doping conspiracy, Wednesday asked the judge in the case to delay the trial over concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a highly-redacted document filed Jan. 12 in the United States District Court (Southern District of New York), Fishman's attorney, Maurice Sercarz, wrote that he and Giannelli's lawyer “respectfully submit that the present trial should be adjourned until there has been a substantial reduction in the prevalence of this variant of the virus.”

Fishman, a Florida veterinarian, is charged with two felony counts related to drug alteration, misbranding, and conspiring to defraud the government. Giannelli faces a related charge that has to do with an online business called Equestology that was closely tied to Fishman's venture.

A footnote within the request is the most substantial part of the document that survived redaction.

It states that conducting a “trial before masked jurors implicates the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel from gauging jurors' facial reactions to questions and arguments counsel may advance and tailoring them accordingly.

“Insofar as the pandemic will reduce or eliminate the number of unvaccinated individuals available for jury service-and to the extent it disproportionately cognizable groups like the elderly and people of color-forcing a trial under these conditions may also implicate Dr. Fishman's right to a jury drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. The former prospect is especially fraught in a case instigated by the Food and Drug Administration.

“Finally, significant disruptions may ensue should key trial participants contract an infection [redacted] or another participant, creating substantial trail management problems and risking potential mistrial,” the footnote states.

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Fishman Adds Lawyer Known for Defending Controversial Clients

An attorney who has been in the headlines for defending high-profile clients such as the convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted NXIVM “sex cult” leader Keith Raniere, and the convicted Mexican drug lord and murderer Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera on Monday got added to the legal team for Seth Fishman, the indicted Florida veterinarian whose trial in the nationwide racehorse doping conspiracy case begins Jan. 19.

The New York-based lawyer Marc Fernich, who has extensive experience defending clients in the United States District Court (Southern District of New York) venue where Fishman's trial will commence, announced his appearance as co-counsel with a Jan. 10 filing in that court.

Fishman is charged with two felony counts related to drug alteration, misbranding, and conspiring to defraud the government.

Last month, Fishman was called before Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil to answer allegations made by prosecutors that he was still selling purportedly performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) even as he prepared to face a trial related to the sale of many of those same substances. At a bail revocation hearing, Fishman was ordered to surrender all of the substances stored at his Boca Raton business, but the judge stopped short of revoking his pre-trial release privileges.

Fernich, according to the bio on his firm's website, specializes in the study of legal precedents in intense regulatory environments. This expertise “enables Fernich to construct subtle, novel and creative arguments that other attorneys may miss” and it centers on “sophisticated appeals and legal motions that can toss charges at the trial level or pave the way for future appeals.”

Lisa Giannelli, whom the feds allege ran an online sales business called Equestology that was closely related to Fishman's venture, will also go on trial at the same time as Fishman.

Six of 27 defendants named in the original indictment have now been sentenced after pleading guilty to charges in the federal government's prosecution of an alleged “corrupt scheme” to manufacture, mislabel, rebrand, distribute, and administer PEDs to racehorses all across America and in international races.

Giannelli and Fishman will be the first to push their cases to a trial. The indicted former trainer Jason Servis, the highest-profile of the remaining defendants, is in a third trial grouping that does not yet have an assigned court date.

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