Tag: TJC Integrity

Jason Servis, for years one of the top Thoroughbred trainers in the country, pleaded guilty in a New York courtroom Dec. 9 to resolve charges arising from the government's sweeping investigation into horse doping at racetracks across the country.

Servis, 65, faces four years in prison when he is sentenced May 18, 2023, in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Servis was one of 31 defendants in the case, which garnered national headlines when prosecutors announced indictments nearly three years ago and cast a black eye on the racing industry.

They had been charged with doping horses with various performance-enhancing drugs that were undetectable by racing regulators. Prosecutors said the use of PEDs by greedy trainers corrupted the sport, cheated the betting public, and endangered horses who were asked to perform beyond their natural capabilities.

Servis was the last defendant facing charges.

He pleaded guilty in connection with his role in the distribution of adulterated and misbranded drugs intended for administration on racehorses he trained.

“Servis' conduct represents corruption at the highest levels of the racehorse industry,” Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a release. “As a licensed racehorse trainer, Servis was bound to protect the horses under his care and to comply with racing rules designed to ensure the safety and well-being of horses and protect the integrity of the sport.”

Williams added: “Servis abdicated his responsibilities to the animals, to regulators, and to the public. This latest conviction demonstrates the commitment of this Office and of our partners at the FBI to the prosecution and investigation of corruption, fraud, deceit, and endangerment in the racehorse industry.”

“Guilty,” Servis said, as he admitted to a new felony charge of misbranding and adulterating a chemical substance described by prosecutors as similar to the bronchodilator clenbuterol but stronger.

“Guilty,” he said, admitting to another new charge, a misdemeanor, of misbranding and adulterating a compound chemical called SGF-1000.

Servis had been scheduled to go on trial next month on two counts–conspiracy to misbrand and adulterate performance-enhancing drugs and conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He would have faced 25 years in prison on those two counts if convicted.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to dismiss those charges and bring new ones.

Also, as part of the plea deal, Servis agreed to forfeit $311,760 and to pay restitution in the amount of $163,932.

Servis showed up in court in a sports jacket and tie. Racing authorities suspended his trainer's license after his arrest in March 2020.

At the time of his arrest, prosecutors accused Servis of administering adulterated and misbranded PEDS, including SGF-1000, to “virtually all of the racehorses under his control.”

Those horses included Maximum Security, who finished first in the 2019 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) but was disqualified for interference during the running of the race.

Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil brought up Maximum Security's name during a portion of the proceeding that required Servis to admit his guilt by allocuting to the charges. 

At that point, Servis attorney Rita Glavin interjected to say that, yes, her client would admit that Maximum Security had been administered SGF-1000 by a veterinarian for his barn.

Glavin also objected when Vyskocil asked Servis if he was challenging the fact that Maximum Security finished first in the overseas $20 million Saudi Cup in the Middle East in February 2020, a month before his arrest.

After a brief back and forth, Servis conceded that fact.

He also told Vyskocil that he would not challenge other statements to other facts in the plea agreement. 

For instance, he conceded that he continued using SGF-1000 after New York regulators put out an advisory in September 2019 saying that SGF-1000 was a prohibited substance.

He also conceded that SGF-1000 cost $300 a bottle and that vet bills sent to owners disguised the use of SGF-1000 on his horses as “acupuncture and chiropractic.”

In the case of the clenbuterol-like substance, Servis admitted that on May 8, 2019, he shipped it from his barn at Monmouth to Belmont and hid it in a soda bottle concealed in a bucket of poultice, an herbal anti-inflammatory paste.

In court papers, Glavin argued that Servis was not guilty of the charges against him because prosecutors lacked evidence that SGF-1000 was performance-enhancing or contained growth factors. These considerations would make it a PED.

She also argued that none of Servis' horses ever tested positive for clenbuterol misuse.

On Friday, Glavin told Vyskocil that she planned to argue before the sentencing that Servis had been repeatedly told by his vet that SGF-1000 was legal to use.

The plea agreement states that Servis' vet repeatedly assured the trainer that SGF-1000 was “legal and not violative of racing rules as reflected in intercepted calls in June and August of 2019.”

Prosecutors argued in court papers that those who marketed SGF-1000 didn't understand what it was other than that it was undetectable in tests conducted by racing regulators.

They also contend that SGF-1000 does contain growth factors of a variety that were intentionally difficult to detect.

Williams said Servis ordered hundreds of bottles of the drug “SGF-1000,” which was compounded and manufactured in unregistered facilities.

He said Servis obtained the misbranded version of clenbuterol from convicted co-defendant New Jersey trainer Jorge Navarro. He is serving a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty a year ago.

With Servis' plea, 23 of the 31 individuals charged have pleaded guilty. Two were convicted after trial, and two were offered deferred prosecution agreements.

The defendants included 11 Thoroughbred and Standardbred trainers and seven veterinarians.

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

The post Jason Servis Enters Guilty Plea, Faces Four Years In Prison appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Trainer Jason Servis is scheduled to go before federal Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in New York City on Friday morning at 11 a.m. ET, when he is expected to change his plea from not guilty to guilty in connection with the FBI probe into illegal horse doping that led to more than two dozen arrests of trainers, veterinarians, and drug manufacturers and suppliers in March 2020.

Servis, 65, had been scheduled to go on trial Jan. 9, 2023, at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A grand jury indicted Servis with drug adulteration and misbranding conspiracy, along with mail and wire fraud. He is the last of those indicted in a multi-state investigation to have their cases resolved. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York prosecuted the cases, securing guilty pleas or jury convictions from the others, with the exception of one deferred prosecution agreement and several who had their charges dropped in a superseding indictment..

Specifically, prosecutors alleged Servis and others – from December 2016 through March 2020 – were “engaged in a corrupt scheme to secretly procure and distribute adulterated and misbranded PEDs and administer them to racehorses in a systematic effort to improve race performance.” The indictment said Servis worked with veterinarians Kristian Rhein and Alexander Chan to have SGF-1000 and clenbuterol illegally administered to his horses, including Grade 1 winners Maximum Security and World of Trouble. (Read about SGF-1000 here.)

The indictment included details of an intercepted phone call between Rhein and Servis after Maximum Security had been tested out of competition prior to a June 16, 2019, race at Monmouth Park. Servis was concerned the horse would test positive for SGF-1000, which had been administered shortly before the drug test sample was taken. Rhein assured Servis he had nothing to worry about, saying “They don't even have a test for it … There's no test for it in America.”

Rhein added that SGF-1000 could trigger a false positive for the permitted anti-inflammatory dexamethasone, so Servis arranged to have another veterinarian falsify records to indicate that drug had been administered to Maximum Security.

Rhein was sentenced to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty. Chan, who was scheduled to go on trial with Servis, changed his plea to guilty on Dec. 5 and is awaiting sentencing.

Servis and Navarro discussed their illegal drug use in intercepted telephone conversations and text messages that were included in the federal indictment.

On Feb. 18, 2019, Servis warned Navarro via text message that a racing official was in an area where both men allegedly stored and administered PEDs. If he not been warned by Servis, Navarro said later that day, “He would've caught our asses f–king pumping and pumping and fuming every f–king horse (that) runs today.”

On March 5, 2019, Servis told Navarro during an intercepted phone call that “I've been using it (SGF-1000) on everything almost.” Navarro responded, “Jay, we'll sit down and talk about this shit. I don't want to talk about this shit on the phone, OK?”

Navarro was sentenced to five years in prison.

The son of a jockey and brother of Kentucky Derby-winning trainer John Servis, Jason Servis worked as an exercise rider and jockey valet at Charles Town before taking out his trainer's license in 2001. His first graded stakes win came in 2008 and Firenze Fire became his first Grade 1 winner when he took the 2017 Champagne. Servis added five additional Grade 1 wins – three of them by Maximum Security, who finished first in the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby but was disqualified for interference. Maximum Security also won the $20-million Saudi Cup less than two weeks before Servis and the others were indicted. Saudi officials withheld the first-place purse from that race.

In the years prior to his indictment, Servis won races at eye-opening rates: 45 percent during Gulfstream Park's 2018-19 championship meet and 41% at Monmouth Park in 2018. Navarro had similar strike rates at Gulfstream and Monmouth.

Horseplayers and many of his fellow trainers were skeptical of the successes enjoyed by Servis and Navarro, wondering how they did it.

Now they know.

The post Jason Servis Expected To Plead Guilty On Friday appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority's (HISA) Board of Directors has appointed Dr. Lynn Hovda, Barry Irwin and Dr. Stephen Schumacher to serve as new members of its Anti-Doping and Medication Control (ADMC) Standing Committee, effective Dec. 1, 2022. The appointments, following recommendations from the HISA Nominating Committee led by Chair Dr. Nancy Cox, fill the vacancies left by the resignations of Jeff Novitzky, Dr. Mary Scollay and Dr. Scott Stanley from the Committee.

Following the submission of the ADMC Prohibited Substances list to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for final review in October, the Committee has transitioned its focus from the drafting of new rules and regulations to advising on the implementation of HISA's ADMC Program nationwide in 2023. The day-to-day operations and administration of the ADMC Program will be handled by the Horseracing Integrity & Welfare Unit (HIWU). As previously announced, departing ADMC Standing Committee member Dr. Mary Scollay has been named HIWU's Chief of Science.

“Both the outgoing and new incoming members of our Committee are deeply committed to HISA's mission to advance equine safety and strengthen the integrity of racing via a standardized, national anti-doping program,” said Adolpho Birch, ADMC Standing Committee Chair. “We are grateful for the service and time given by each of these individuals. I am confident that HISA will greatly benefit from our new members' combined decades of experience, leadership and acumen as we continue our process with the FTC and enter into a new robust, uniform era of anti-doping enforcement in 2023.”

Dr. Lynn Hovda, appointed as an industry member representing state racing commissions, is Chief Commission Veterinarian for the Minnesota Racing Commission and practices medicine at the Flying J Veterinary Clinic in Loretto, Minn. Dr. Hovda is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Minnesota College of Veterinary Medicine and sits on committees of the American Quarter Horse Association, Association of Racing Commissioners International, and Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. She previously served on committees of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine, Association of Regulatory Racetrack Veterinarians, and Minnesota Equine Research Council. Dr. Hovda is board certified in large animal internal medicine and received an MS in Veterinary Science from the University of Wisconsin, a DVM in Veterinary Medicine and BS in Veterinary Science from the University of Minnesota and a BS in Pharmacy from North Dakota State University. She has written and edited numerous articles and textbooks, and most recently was the primary editor for “Blackwell's Five-Minute Veterinary Consult: Equine Toxicology.”

“I am deeply honored to be appointed to this Committee and look forward to using my knowledge in pharmacy and toxicology, as well as my years of experience as a regulatory veterinarian, to provide information and direction as the ADMC is implemented,” said Dr. Hovda.

Barry Irwin, appointed as an industry member representing owners, is owner of the Thoroughbred horse racing stable of Team Valor International in Lake Worth, Fla., and the owner and breeder of 2011 Kentucky Derby and 2013 Dubai World Cup winner, Animal Kingdom. Irwin previously served as president of the Pacifica Thoroughbreds bloodstock agency and Chairman of the Board of The Race for Education, as well as a writer for The Daily Racing Form, BloodHorse and Thoroughbred of California Magazine. Irwin continues to contribute columns today for BloodHorse, as well as other racing publications including Thoroughbred Racing Commentary and Paulick Report. He is the author of “Derby Innovator: The Making of Animal Kingdom” and “Swaps: The California Comet” of the Thoroughbred Legend books series. Irwin is a longtime member of the Water Hay Oats Alliance (WHOA), which supported the passage of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act in 2020. Irwin attended California State University at Los Angeles and Northridge and is a graduate of Los Angeles City College.

“Having an owner representative from WHOA on the ADMC Standing Committee is an important inclusion by HISA, and I am hopeful of making a valuable contribution to the effort of reaching a level playing field in horse racing,” said Irwin.

Dr. Stephen Schumacher, appointed as an independent member, is Chief Administrator of the United States Equestrian Federation's Equine Drugs and Medications Program, an Advisory Panel Member at the University of Kentucky Equine Analytical Chemistry Laboratory, and a List Group Member of the Federation Equestre Internationale. He was previously an Equine Drug Testing Veterinarian for USA Equestrian and an Equine Drug Testing Technician for the American Horse Shows Association. Dr. Schumacher serves on committees of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, Equine Disease Communication Center, National Equine Health Plan, American Horse Council, and Racing Medication Testing Consortium. He received a PhD and DVM from The Ohio State University and a BS in Biology from The Citadel.

“I am honored and excited to be appointed to the ADMC Standing Committee and strongly support the introduction of national, standardized anti-doping rules in horse racing,” said Dr. Schumacher. “These standards will have a positive impact on the welfare of horses and the integrity of the sport.”

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