The 27 defendants who were arrested and indicted Monday by federal authorities on charges related to manufacturing, procuring, distributing and administering illegal substances to racehorses are due back in court on March 23 for their initial pleas, according to individuals involved in the investigation. All 27 defendants were arrested en masse at 4 a.m. on Monday morning in jurisdictions stretching from Florida to New York. Federal authorities confiscated the phones of all those who were arrested, according to the individuals. :: To stay up to date, follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Most of the defendants are facing one or two counts of "misbranding conspiracy," according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which unsealed the indictments Monday morning. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment, according to prosecutors. The two most high-profile trainers named in the indictment, Jason Servis and Jorge Navarro, are facing one count and two counts, respectively. In four separate indictments, the government alleged that the 27 individuals, which included licensees in Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing, engaged in a wide-ranging conspiracy to obtain misbranded substances and administer those substances to racehorses. The indictments include partial transcripts of intercepted phone calls between Navarro, Servis, and various other individuals alleged to be participating in the conspiracy. A person who has experience in federal prosecutions of the nature outlined in the indictments who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to his position in the racing industry said that the information contained in the indictments – and the fact that many of the individuals on the other side of intercepted phone calls were unnamed – indicated that the investigation is still ongoing. According to the person, the federal government is likely to spend the next two weeks attempting to reach plea bargains with some individuals to provide testimony against others, including those not already indicted. “This is just the starting point,” the person said. “This is going to get ugly. It really will.” Efforts to identify attorneys representing the indicted individuals has proven difficult over the past 24 hours due to the government’s confiscation of cell phones. Several attorneys who are often sought-after to represent racing licensees in medication or drug positives said on Tuesday morning that they have so far declined to represent the individuals, mostly due to their existing relationships in the racing industry. News of the indictments has led supporters of federal legislation that would appoint the United States Anti-Doping Agency, a non-profit company, as the overseer of the sport’s medication rules and enforcement to reissue calls for industry backing of the bill. The legislation, which has been introduced three times to Congress, has never advanced to a vote, in large part because various powerful constituencies in racing oppose the bill, including Churchill Downs Inc. Supporters of the legislation contend that USADA would be able to coordinate the type of investigation used by federal authorities to issue the indictments on Monday, which relied on informants, wiretaps, and tracking the flow of substances across state lines. Racing is currently regulated on a state-by-state basis, and although many states have cooperated on anti-doping investigations in the past, especially when obtaining out-of-competition samples, supporters of the bill say that the patchwork of jurisdictional authority needlessly handicaps wide-ranging investigations. “Equine doping has long been a concern in racing circles, but one that has been difficult to investigate or prosecute effectively because the sport’s regulatory oversight has been diffused, and often lax, across more than 30 separate state regulatory and enforcement agencies,” said a statement released by The Jockey Club, which has spearheaded efforts to pass the bill. “Most people in the sport have suspected that some level of doping occurs, but evidence has been mostly third-hand and circumstantial, and real information was needed to define the problem and craft a path to solution.” The Coalition for Horse Racing Integrity, a lobbying group funded by supporters of the bill, said that opponents of the bill have “simply run out of arguments” in defending the existing system of state-by-state regulation. Shawn Smeallie, the executive director of the Coalition for Horse Racing Integrity, said in a statement released after the indictments were unsealed: “By uncovering this ‘widespread, corrupt scheme,’ the FBI and Justice Department has exposed to the world what we have been saying has plagued our industry for too long – an accepted culture of doping in racing, and the complete inability of the current anti-doping system to stop it. We need to pass national legislation now to replace our ineffective patchwork system with a much more uniform and independent anti-doping program.” In multiple interviews conducted since Monday, longtime racing officials said that they were focusing on the silver lining in the indictments - that the charges contained in them could lead to widespread changes in how trainers and the veterinary community conduct themselves. Several pointed to similar indictments handed down several years ago in Pennsylvania that led to the sentencing of a handful of low-level trainers and veterinarians at Penn National as serving as a shot over the bow. “Those indictments didn’t change the culture,” said Jim Gagliano, the president and chief operating officer of The Jockey Club. “These indictments can.” Navarro and Servis are by far the biggest names to be caught up in a doping scandal in racing in recent memory. Suspicions have surrounded the trainers for most of the last decade due to their spectacular win rates and their ability to seemingly transform cheaper stock into stakes runners. As a result, many trainers and owners speaking out since yesterday have welcomed the charges, saying they had been competing on an unlevel playing field for too long. Graham Motion, a trainer who supports the federal bill, said that the indictment indicates that racing has “hit rock-bottom.” “But maybe we do have to hit rock-bottom to make things better,” he said. “It’s such a shame that we haven’t been able to police our own sport, that it took an FBI investigation to have something done with what is clearly a problem.” Trainer Mark Casse said that the news Monday could mean that racing is “headed in the right direction.” “[Monday] was a huge day in horse racing because it’s the beginning of cleaning up our sport, which we so badly needed,” Casse said. “I had to pinch myself to make sure it was real.” - additional reporting by David Grening and Marty McGee