Giannelli testifies in her own defense at conspiracy trial

NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Lisa Giannelli, an equine supplements distributor who is charged by federal prosecutors with adulterating and misbranding drugs, testified at her trial on Thursday that she had a good reason for wanting to speak in her own defense.

“To tell my story,” she told the jury in U.S. District Court in New York.

She is on trial on a conspiracy charge, accused of assisting veterinarian Seth Fishman in the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs that prosecutors say were administered illegally to racehorses. Fishman employed Giannelli through his Florida-based veterinary products company Equestology.

During three hours of questioning by her attorney Louis Fasulo, Giannelli, who admitted being nervous when her testimony began, told the jury that it was never her intention to defraud any racing commissions.

She also testified that she never benefited financially when trainers decided to break the rules to win races.

And she testified that she never agreed with Fishman to engage in fraud.

“It was never my intention,” Giannelli testified.

The testimony came on the trial’s sixth day in front of Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil.

The trial resumes on Thursday with closing arguments and then possibly jury deliberations.

Prosecutors say Fishman, who was convicted in February and faces 20 years in prison, manufactured PEDs that Giannelli sold out of her home in Delaware as an employee of Equestology.

Giannelli testified it was her understanding she could sell whatever products Fishman created because he was a licensed veterinarian.

“I was just told to take orders,” she testified. “I was not to give medical advice or offer a medical opinion or act as a veterinarian.”

Giannelli testified that drugs she kept in her home that the FBI seized when she was arrested in 2020 were “items of Dr. Fishman’s that clients called in for as needed.”

She said Fishman manufactured his products without her help and that she knew little about them.

Gianelli also testified that she wasn’t involved in designing labels for those products.

Asked then by Fasulo why another Equestolgoy employee sought her input on the color of a new drug bottle’s cap, she replied, “Dr. Fishman was color-blind.”

She also said that in conversations with Fishman it was hard to know what he was talking about.

Giannelli told the jury she didn’t know what he meant when he told her about “stem cells” in a 2019 call that was wiretapped by the FBI.

“He is rambling and I was just like ‘yeah,’ ” Gianelli testified. “Dr. Fishman rambled a lot.”

When asked why she sold drugs without any label on the bottle, she said, “That was a decision by my boss. It was what it was.”

On cross-examination, prosecutor Sarah Mortazavi asked Giannelli if she knew the difference between prescription and non-prescription drugs.

“My employer did,” the witness testified, adding that she knows the difference now.

“But you didn’t at the time?” Mortazavi asked.

“I know only know what Dr. Fishman told me,” Giannelli replied.

At another point, Mortazavi asked Giannelli if she had suggested new products for Fishman to make at Equestology.

“Yes,” the witness said.

“So now you are clarifying your testimony on direct in which you testified that you didn’t suggest new products for Seth Fishman to make?” the prosecutor asked.

“Correct,” Giannelli testified.

At the start of the cross-examination, Mortazavi asked Giannelli about her days working as a groom and a trainer at harness tracks decades ago, before she began working for Fishman. Giannelli acknowledged her license was suspended when a horse tested positive for an overage of total carbon dioxide in the blood.

“It was a bicarbonate,” the witness testified.

“Is that baking soda?” Mortazavi asked.

“Bicarbonate is whatever bicarbonate is,” Giannelli told the jury.