Jorge Navarro

A Jan. 23 trial date for the Jason Servis case was announced last week, which means in about eight months there will be some closure and Servis will learn his fate. The way he has handled things, it seems that he is at least somewhat optimistic that he will be found not guilty. If so, he is deluding himself. Everything about this case says that he has virtually no chance of being acquitted. Which raises a question: why is he fighting this when it makes far more sense to go...

The federal government's crackdown on horse doping notched another courthouse win May 6 with a jury finding Lisa Giannelli guilty of conspiracy to misbrand and adulterate drugs after an eight-day trial. The jury of eight men and four women in U.S. District Court in New York returned the verdict after less than two hours of deliberations spanning two days. Giannelli, 55, of Felton, Del., faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison at her sentencing Sept. 8 before Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. The jurors rejected Giannelli's testimony in which...

Since the FBI announced in 2020 that their years-long federal investigation into cheating allegations in horse racing had caught admitted "doper" Jorge Navarro, suspected "doper" Jason Servis and a host of other co-conspirators, the lines separating these criminals and most of the rest of the industry's participants with largely minor legal drug positives have been significantly blurred. Fast forward to the 2021 Kentucky Derby, a full 14 months after Navarro and Servis were arrested and charged with federal conspiracy charges related to drugging of their horses, social media erupted with...

The veterinarian Seth Fishman, who is currently incarcerated at Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after being convicted Feb. 2 on two felony counts in an international performance-enhancing drug (PED) racehorse doping conspiracy, had his lawyer ask a federal judge on Thursday to push back his May 5 sentencing because he is having trouble filling out required paperwork. Fishman is facing 20 years in prison, and he also has an active motion before the same judge asking for the first of his two convicted counts to be dismissed on the basis...

Ever-popular retired Hall of Fame jockey and current television analyst for Fox Sports and the New York Racing Association Gary Stevens joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland Tuesday afternoon for an expansive discussion on an array of racing topics and issues. Sitting down with Joe Bianca and Bill Finley as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Stevens gave a huge personal endorsement to star 3-year-old filly Secret Oath (Arrogate) as she prepares to take on males, analyzed the shuffling of the California jockey colony, talked about his...

The Juice Man has a new home. After being granted a 30-day delay to the start of his sentence because he was due for eye surgery, disgraced former trainer Jorge Navarro has begun his sentence at FCI Miami, a low security federal correctional institution in Miami. Navarro began his sentence Thursday. In December, Navarro was sentenced to five years imprisonment by Judge Mary Kay Vsykocil of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York after he pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit drug adulteration...

It may seem like yesterday, but the bombshell that was the announcement that more than two dozen people had been indicted for their alleged role in a horse doping scheme was made exactly two years and two days ago. What has happened to the 29 individuals since the day that shook horse racing to its core? Here's a rundown: Jorge Navarro: Navarro pled guilty to one count of drug alteration and misbranding and was sentenced to five years in prison, the maximum allowable sentence. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil was not...

Thirty-four days after being found guilty by jury trial on two felony counts of conspiring to violate adulteration and misbranding laws in the nationwide racehorse doping case, the Florida-based veterinarian Seth Fishman made a motion in federal court asking for the first of those counts to be dismissed on the basis that it is allegedly "multiplicitous of" (already contained within) the second, much broader conspiracy. Fishman's Mar. 8 filing in United States District Court (Southern District of New York) is likely the first of several legal steps leading to a...

NEW YORK--Standardbred trainer Chris Oakes, who has admitted to supplying Jorge Navarro with performance- enhancing drugs as well as using illegal drugs with his own horses, was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday. In October, Oakes, 57, pled guilty to one count of misbranding and drug adulteration with intent to defraud or deceive. The decision was handed down by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York before a small audience that included Meadowlands owner Jeff Gural. Under the sentencing...

Marcos Zulueta, the former mid-Atlantic-based trainer with an abnormally high win percentage who was caught on wiretaps procuring drugs for and boasting about Thoroughbred performance-enhancing regimens with the convicted horse doper Jorge Navarro, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison on Thursday. Zulueta, 53, had pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of adulterating and misbranding drugs with the intent to defraud or mislead. As part of a plea agreement, he had previously agreed to forfeit $47,525. At his Feb. 24 sentencing, the remaining two open felony charges...

Harness trainer Rick Dane Jr. became the latest of the indicted trainers, veterinarians and others in the federal investigation into racehorse doping to enter a guilty plea in federal court on Thursday, and has been ordered to pay a monetary judgement of $33,912. Dane accepted a government plea deal on Friday, Feb. 11, and changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. The agreement was made between Dane, his attorney, U. S. Attorney Damian Williams, and U. S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. Several of the defendants who originally pled...

Harness trainer Rick Dane Jr., one of the 27 people indicted by the federal government on charges of doping racehorses, has accepted a plea offer from the government and his case will now not go to trial. The news was delivered in a Friday, Feb. 11 letter from United States attorney Damian Williams to Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil. "The Government writes on behalf of the Government and defense counsel for Rick Dane, Jr., the defendant in the above-captioned case, to alert the Court that the defendant has accepted a plea...