federal doping conspiracy case

The former New York-based veterinarian Alexander Chan got sentenced to 30 months in federal prison Wednesday for his role in the wide-ranging 2020 racehorse doping conspiracy case. Back in December, he had cut a deal with prosecutors that involved pleading guilty to a single felony charge of drug adulteration and misbranding in exchange for two other felony counts against him being dropped. Presentence reports filed by both the government and the defendant painted contrasting pictures of Chan's role. He was arrested in March 2020 as part of a series of...

The sentencing for barred trainer Jason Servis, the final--and most notoriously prominent--defendant in the 2020 racehorse doping conspiracy scandal, was rescheduled by a judge's order on Thursday, from May 18 to July 26. The May 4 court order got handed down four years to the date that the Servis-trained Maximum Security (New Year's Day) crossed the finish wire first in the GI Kentucky Derby. The colt was subsequently disqualified for in-race interference. Unbeknownst to Servis at the time, federal investigators had already begun compiling a trove of wiretapped phone conversations...

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...

The judge in the federal doping conspiracy case used words like "frivolous" and "weak" to swat away motions made by seven defendants to suppress wiretap and other electronic evidence in trails that are expected to commence in 2022. The opinion and order filed Dec. 8 by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in United States District Court (Southern District of New York) follows a verbal ruling she made Nov. 4 during a status conference that denied all of the related motions made during the late summer by Jason Servis, Seth Fishman, Lisa...