Fishman Appeals Conviction, 11-Year Sentence

Veterinarian Seth Fishman, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison July 11 after two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, has appealed his case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Fishman's notice of appeal landed on the electronic court docket shortly after 6 p.m. Eastern time Friday.

The filing noted that Fishman is appealing both the conviction and the sentence.

Fishman's 11-year sentence was the longest meted out in the case that led to charges against 31 individuals, including prominent trainers Jorge Navarro (who pleaded guilty last year and is currently serving a five-year sentence) and Jason Servis (who has pleaded not guilty and is set to stand trial in January).

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Seth Fishman Sentenced to 11 Years in Prison

Dr. Seth Fishman, the Florida veterinarian snared in the federal government's sweeping horse doping investigation, was sentenced Monday to an 11-year prison sentence in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The sentence is the longest meted out in the case that led to charges against 31 individuals, including prominent trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. Fishman is the 11th to be sentenced, which includes Navarro. Most of the others have pleaded guilty and await sentencing. Servis faces trial next year.

Fishman, who has been behind bars since his conviction five months ago on two counts of conspiracy to commit drug adulteration and misbranding, appeared in court in prison garb and addressed the court before being sentenced. Prosecutors say that over 20 years, Fishman supplied illegal performance-enhancing drugs to hundreds of trainers, including Navarro, who pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to five years in prison.

“I really have to apologize for what I did,” the 51-year veterinarian said. “There's no excuse for my behavior.”

In a rare admission, Fishman conceded violating the law and conspiring with others.

“I should have never pushed the envelope and helped trainers,” he said.

He told Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil he now lacked any desire to “practice medicine” on animals.

“I have no desire to make another substance for a racehorse again,” Fishman said as his family looked on from the gallery.

Fishman concluded his brief remarks by telling the judge that whatever sentence she imposed, “10, 15, or 20 years, I just want to be a better person.”

He showed no emotion as the sentence was handed down.

In addition to his prison time, the veterinarian will be held jointly responsible for $25 million in restitution along with Navarro and other co-conspirators.

The restitution represents Navarro's total purse winnings during from 2016 to 2020.

In addition, Fishman must forfeit $13.5 million, which is what he earned from his business of manufacturing and distributing his performance-enhancing substances which prosecutors say were designed to evade detection in post-race testing.

His sentence also includes a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors introduced evidence showing that Fishman's business earned millions of dollars a year.

Vyskocil told Fishman his actions misled racing regulators and drug regulators, as well as others.

“You misled competitors of your clients and the betting public,” she said.

She told him that as a veterinarian, “you enjoyed a special position of trust and you abused that trust.”

The judge said the PEDs Fishman manufactured were harmful to racehorses because they were designed to push them beyond their natural abilities.

She said that in addition to putting at risk horses that were doped with his PEDs, Fishman put at risk the other horses who ran in the race and jockeys who rode those horses and could have been hurt if a horse broke down.

She noted that Navarro paid Fishman credit in a text after winning the 2019 $2-million G1 Dubai Golden Shaheen at Meydan Racecourse with X Y Jet and that the horse died less than a year later.

“To say there was no risk to horses is just not accurate,” she said.

Vyskocil told Fishman that his motive was greed and that, up until the sentencing, there had been a complete lack of remorse on his part.

Vyskocil said an 11-year sentence was warranted given the sentences of other defendants.

She also said she hoped it would act as a general deterrence.

“I know this case has been followed extensively in the racing industry. It is my hope that the sentence acts as a general deterrent to those who might be engaging in the same scourge of criminality.”

Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 10 to 17 1/2 years. Fishman faced a maximum of 20 years in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.

Prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi told Vyskocil that a significant sentence was warranted given that Fishman had shipped his illegal PEDs all over the country to hundreds of trainers.

“It was all designed to help a competitor get an illegal edge,” she said.

During her remarks, Mortazavi said Fishman's claims at trial that as a veterinarian he cared about animals was a “self-serving myth.”
Fishman attorney Maurice Sercarz appealed to the judge for a sentence of less than 10 years.

He said Fishman should be given leniency because of his client's psychiatric disabilities, which he said were “substantial.” He added that Fishman suffers from acute anxiety, depression and had been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder.

Fishman missed the last two days of his trial after being admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The proceeding ended with Vyskocil telling Fishman that she heard what he said about wanting to be a better person.

“Hopefully you'll be getting well,” she said. “You do have some demons.”

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Feds: Fishman ‘Amplified the Disastrous Effects of Doping’

Six days before veterinarian Seth Fishman is to be sentenced for his two felony drug-supplying convictions in a decades-long international racehorse doping conspiracy, United States prosecutors told a judge he deserves a prison term greater than the 10 years recommended by federal probation officials, but below the maximum sentencing guideline of 20 years.

The feds also recommended that the judge not use convicted trainer Jorge Navarro's five-year sentence-the most severe among prison terms meted out so far in this conspiracy-as a measuring stick, because Fishman's criminal actions had a multiplying effect that caused exponential harm to racehorses, and he continued to peddle alleged performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) “until practically the eve” of his trial.

“[U]nlike the trainer-defendants charged and sentenced in this matter, Fishman's reach extended far beyond a single barn,” prosecutors stated in a July 5 sentencing submission filed in U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York).

“He supplied at least hundreds of trainers with his unsafe and illegal drugs. The breadth of the drugs the defendant offered for sale is unmatched by any other charged defendant in this action. The defendant was thus responsible for amplifying the disastrous effects of doping on racehorses in the industry. The defendant, under the guise of providing medically necessary veterinary care, enabled scores of corrupt trainers by selling unnecessary PEDs to enrich himself,” the filing stated.

Fishman undoubtedly tried to paint a different picture in his own sentencing submission that got filed June 27. But the public can't access that document, because his legal team asked for and received permission from the court to file it under seal.

Three days prior, on June 24, TDN reported that Fishman had to be hospitalized for psychiatric reasons during his trial earlier this year, thus explaining his cryptic absence during closing arguments. The presence of records related to his health could have been a reason the judge okayed shielding what is normally a public document.

The July 5 filing by the feds, however, shed some light on what Fishman wrote in his pre-sentencing filing, which is a convict's final chance to impress upon a judge that he doesn't deserve harsh punishment.

“It is unsurprising that the defendant's sentencing submission contains no expression of remorse or contrition,” the feds stated. “He likewise expresses no desire to reform. Even on the verge of sentencing, the defendant is entirely unrepentant for his crimes, and, absent a significant term of imprisonment, is at a high risk of recidivism.”

The government's report continued: “For almost two decades, including two years after his arrest in this matter, Seth Fishman cravenly pumped hundreds of thousands of illegal PEDs into the marketplace, and was dissuaded by no one–not state racing commissions, racetracks, the Food and Drug Administration, Customs and Border Protection, state drug regulators, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, nor this Court-to comply with the law.

“The defendant earned millions of dollars. He did so on the backs of racehorses that were doped by corrupt trainers. The defendant and his convicted co-conspirator, Lisa Giannelli, armed trainers motivated by greed with the means to corruptly win races by injecting and drenching racehorses with unsafe, medically unnecessary, prohibited PEDs.

“Fishman was not naïve or ignorant of the law. He did not 'exercise very poor judgment.' His crimes were not the product of a momentary lapse. Fishman was at the helm of a sophisticated, years-long, cross-border scheme to profit from the creation, marketing, sale, and distribution of illegal PEDs that he shipped across the country and around the world to unscrupulous trainers and others in the racehorse industry that sought to gain a competitive edge…” the filing stated.

“Over approximately 20 years, Fishman perpetuated the myth that he was operating as a legitimate veterinarian, conducting examinations, reaching diagnoses, and prescribing necessary medications for the treatment and prevention of bona fide medical issues.

“Yet Fishman did no such thing. He instead concocted novel PEDs, mass-produced his creations, and marketed and sold them to trainers across the country and around the world, resulting in millions of dollars of sales. He ran an illegal wholesale drug distribution business.

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Judge Says No to Fishman Conviction Dismissal

A federal judge on Tuesday denied a request by prison-bound veterinarian Seth Fishman to dismiss Count One of his two racehorse doping conspiracy convictions.

Fishman, whose 26 months as a defendant have been hallmarked by minor courtroom dramas, various attempts to prevent or delay the trial, and accusations that he continued to peddle purported performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) while free on bail, had argued that he was tried twice for the same crime because the first count was contained within the second, much broader conspiracy.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil of United States District Court (Southern District of New York) didn't see it that way. Her May 31 ruling against Fishman's motion paves the way for his June 30 sentencing, at which he faces up to 20 years in prison.

“Fishman now moves pursuant to Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure for acquittal on Count One, arguing that Count One is multiplicitous of Count Two,” Vyskocil wrote in her order. “That motion is DENIED because a rational trier of fact could find, based on the evidence at trial, that Fishman participated in two distinct conspiracies.”

Fishman, along with six other veterinarians, 11 trainers, and nine others, was charged in 2020 with being a key figure in an international network of purported PED suppliers who allegedly conspired to dope racehorses in New York, New Jersey, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, and the United Arab Emirates.

Count One alleged a four-year conspiracy (2016-20) with Jorge Navarro, Erica Garcia, Marcos Zulueta, Michael Tannuzzo, Christopher Oakes and unnamed others. Count Two alleged a broad, 18-year conspiracy (2002-20) with Lisa Giannelli, Jordan Fishman, Rick Dane, Jr., and unnamed others based on Fishman's Florida online drug-selling portal.

Although a number of defendants in the wide-ranging racehorse doping conspiracy pleaded guilty prior to Fishman, he was the first to stand trial and to be found guilty by a jury.

“The defendant filed several pretrial motions, but he never argued that the Indictment was multiplicitous,” Vyskocil wrote. “The defendant also never raised the issue of multiplicity in connection with any of the Court's instructions to the jury at the trial. Indeed, the instructions relevant to this motion were jointly proposed by the defendant and the government…

“In charging the jury at the end of the case, the Court stressed that the Indictment contained two separate counts, that each count charged a 'separate' conspiracy, and that the jury was required to consider each count 'separately' and 'return a separate verdict on each count.' The Court explained that while there might be 'facts in common to different counts, each count must be considered separately.'

“The Court further explained that while '[m]uch of the law' applied to both counts, the Court would point out differences and 'provide specific instructions' about 'particular elements or findings,'” Vyskocil wrote. “The Court also instructed the jury that the Indictment charged the defendant with continuing the conspiracy charged in Count Two while he was released on bail.

“The Court stressed that whether the jury found Seth Fishman 'guilty or not guilty' of one charged conspiracy 'should not affect [the jury's] verdict' as to the other conspiracy charged in the Indictment. The defense consented to all of these instructions in advance, never objected to them during the trial, and never otherwise raised the issue of multiplicity with respect to the jury charges,” Vyskocil continued.

“The jury convicted Seth Fishman of both of the charged conspiracies, found that he had intent to defraud or mislead with respect to each conspiracy, and found that he continued the Count Two conspiracy after he was released on bail,” Vyskocil summed up.

Fishman's sentencing was supposed to be May 5, but got pushed back to May 26 when he claimed he did not receive financial forms from the feds that are necessary for his pre-sentencing report. Then he requested another new date after pandemic-related lockdown conditions were imposed upon the cell block where he is being detained in New York.

Previous legal maneuverings included the Florida-based veterinarian being inexplicably absent from court on the day that he was found guilty. A cryptic comment from Fishman's attorney to the judge during closing arguments led to speculation that Fishman had to be hospitalized.

In December 2021, Vyskocil had modified Fishman's bail conditions after federal prosecutors presented evidence that backed up allegations he was still selling PEDs while awaiting trial.

On two other occasions in 2020 and 2022, Fishman had unsuccessfully petitioned the court to adjust scheduling for pandemic-related reasons, at first arguing that his right to a speedy trial was being hindered, and then wanting to delay the trial over concerns related to not wanting to get sick with COVID-19.

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