Former steward Lewandowski recommends gaming commission reinstate Dutrow

A former state racing official has sent a letter to his former employers at the New York State Gaming Commission seeking to reinstate trainer Richard Dutrow Jr., who is currently serving a 10-year suspension.

Steve Lewandowski, who served as the gaming commission steward for five years before retiring last summer, in November sent a letter to the commission in which he called the suspension and $50,000 fine levied against Dutrow “a gross miscarriage of justice.”

The contents of the letter were first reported by Horse Racing Insider on Sunday.

Lewandowski, in a phone interview with Daily Racing Form on Monday, said he is simply seeking clemency for Dutrow.

“I’m not a friend of his, I have no relationship with him other than talking on the telephone once in a while,” Lewandowski said. “He’s acted like a gentleman through this whole deal, he’s honored his suspension, and I think that goes a long way. My thing was clemency.”

Dutrow, who won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2008 with Big Brown, began serving his suspension in January 2013. In November 2011, Dutrow was suspended by the commission for a history of rules violations that included a horse who won at Aqueduct in November 2010 that tested positive for a banned substance as well as having three syringes loaded with a banned substance discovered in the desk drawer of his Aqueduct office.

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In his letter to the commission, Lewandowski alleges Braulio Baeza Jr., then the NYRA steward and currently the gaming commission steward, told him and the Jockey Club steward Dr. Ted Hill on numerous occasions that the evidence found in Dutrow’s barn “was planted as NYRA was also involved in the barn search of Mr. Dutrow’s barn.”

Baeza said Monday he could not comment on the accusation.

Brad Maione, a spokesperson for the gaming commission, also declined comment.

According to Karen Murphy, the attorney representing Dutrow, she recently filed with the gaming commission a fourth request to reopen Dutrow’s case. Murphy said the commission doesn’t even acknowledge receipt of those filings.

Murphy and Lewandowski both said the commission hasn’t responded to Lewandowski’s letter.

“That’s corrupt,” Murphy said. “They’ve been told a state actor possibly committed a crime. [Lewandowksi] is their state steward who has been in one of many capacities for 20 years and they can’t pick up the phone, can’t bring him in.”

In July 2018, Dutrow and some of his supporters attended a gaming commission meeting seeking to reopen his case. That August, the gaming commission, in a 4-2 vote, rejected that request because Dutrow did not present any new evidence that would challenge his admission of culpability in the incidents cited in the penalty, according to a ruling endorsed by the commission.

Due in part to Lewandowski’s accusation of “planted evidence,” the Queens district attorney’s office has reopened an investigation into the case, according to Murphy.

Asked if there is evidence that the syringes were planted in Dutrow’s office, Murphy said that’s what the district attorney is supposed to find out.

“They have a very important tool that you and I don’t have, subpoena, where you have to show up and go under oath, and if don’t tell the truth you go to jail,” Murphy said. “It’s a very powerful mechanism.”