N.Y. Gaming Commission seeks dismissal of Rice's stay of suspension

The New York State Gaming Commission has submitted legal filings arguing that a three-year suspension recently meted out to trainer Linda Rice should not be stayed by a court because the penalty would be affirmed by a court and is not “arbitrary and capricious,” according to the filings.

The gaming commission filed the legal brief late last week in the appeals court in Schenectady County to argue that the court should lift its preliminary injunction staying the penalty. The court granted the injunction on June 9, two days after the commission officially revoked Rice’s license.

In the filing, the gaming commission contends that the stay should be lifted because Rice “has not shown a likelihood of success on the merits [of her appeal] or that the equities weigh in favor of preliminary injunctive relief,” saying that a hearing officer’s recommendations for the three-year ban was based on “substantial evidence.”

The hearing officer made the recommendation after eight days of hearings last year laying out allegations that racing office staff gave Rice confidential information about entries in races for a period running from 2012-14 at tracks operated by the New York Racing Association. The report’s recommendation for a three-year ban was approved by the gaming commission on May 17.

In response to the contention by Rice that the ban was “arbitrary and capricious,” the gaming commission argued in its filing that the penalty was appropriate despite few analogous cases. It points to the 10-year suspension approved by the commission for a former NYRA employee involved in the scheme and an unrelated 10-year license revocation to a jockey’s agent who also had access to NYRA’s entry information.

“The three-year license revocation does not represent an unexplained departure from past precedent,” the filing states. “That the commission has not had occasion to discipline anyone else for the exact type of pervasive wrongdoing committed by Ms. Rice does not render the commission’s determination arbitrary and capricious.”