Federal prosecutors add charges to Servis, Navarro case

Federal prosecutors have added charges to an indictment that accused a web of racing individuals, including the high-profile trainers Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, of participating in an illegal scheme to manufacture, distribute, and administer illegal substances to Thoroughbred and Standardbred racehorses, according to a superseding indictment filed Thursday in New York federal court.

The superseding indictment, which replaces the initial indictment unsealed in early March for the defendants named in the new filing, could lead to substantial new penalties if the individuals are found guilty. While most of the 27 individuals named in the initial indictment faced one or two counts of misbranding conspiracy carrying a maximum penalty of five years, the additional charges include mail and wire fraud, federal crimes that carry maximum penalties of 20 years.

The replacement indictment adds new charges against 13 of the individuals named in the first indictment. Five individuals named in the first indictment were not named in the replacement indictment. Two individuals named in the first indictment have already entered guilty pleas and are scheduled to be sentenced in early December and January.

Prosecutors frequently file superseding indictments when a review of the evidence collected in the initial proceeding substantiates additional criminal charges. In addition, some individuals in initial indictments agree to cooperate with prosecutors and provide new evidence in ongoing cases.

The replacement indictment includes few new details about the alleged conspiracy, instead laying out the legal basis for charging the individuals with using the mail to deliver misbranded and adulterated substances. The indictment describes those substances as “performance-enhancing drugs.”

Both indictments have focused heavily on a substance marketed to trainers as SGF-1000, which was purportedly used for its marketed claims “to promote tissue repair and increase a racehorse’s stamina and endurance beyond its natural capability,” according to the indictment. The superseding indictment also includes allegations that Navarro and Servis administered illegal pain blockers and blood-building drugs to their horses, from a period of late 2016 to early 2020.

In the indictment, an alleged manufacturer and distributor of the substances, Jordan Fishman, refers to one blood-builder as an “EPO mimetic,” an apparent reference to a synthetic substance that was marketed as having effects similar to erythropoietin, the blood-doping drug used in a variety of human sports and alleged to have been in use worldwide among racehorse trainers.

The trainers, veterinarians, and distributors of the substances were said to have obtained the drugs from facilities unlicensed by the FDA, including one run by Jordan Fishman and his father, Seth Fishman. The indictment alleges that Navarro and Servis used “straw buyers” to obtain and misbrand the substances so that they appeared to be legitimate medications. Servis also is accused of distributing the substances to other individuals.

Many racing regulators have cast doubt on the efficacy of many products marketed and sold on the internet that purport to have significant impacts on racing performance. The indictment says that Kristian Rhein, a veterinarian who worked with Servis, and Michael Kegley Jr., a sales representative for the company that manufactured several of the substances, “acknowledged in intercepted calls that they in fact did not know the precise contents of SGF-1000.” However, the indictment also says that Kegley acknowledged in a separate call that that he was aware of “the illegal nature of his actions.”

The indictments further order the defendants to forfeit “any and all drugs that were adulterated or misbranded while introduced into or while in interstate commerce” or “the sum of money . . . representing the value of such property.”

The defendants are to be arraigned on the new charges in the superseding indictment on Nov. 17 in the Southern District of New York, according to a separate filing made by prosecutors. The filing says that the new indictment could involve “additional production of discovery” and “review of materials by defendants.”