Rice hearing concludes; attorneys have 30 days to submit written arguments

A hearing into whether the New York-based trainer Linda Rice committed “corrupt or improper practices” by receiving lists of horses entered in races at New York Racing Association tracks prior to the close of entries concluded on Wednesday after Rice completed eight hours of testimony.

The close of the hearing will start the clock on a ruling on the case, which revolves around a time period between late 2011 and early 2015. At the close of the hearing, Clark Petschek, the hearing officer, gave the attorneys involved 30 days to submit written closing arguments, a time period that is dependent on the attorneys first getting written transcripts of the hearings. Petschek will then have at least 30 days to issue a recommendation in the case to the New York Gaming Commission.

The commission can suspend or revoke Rice’s license and issue fines.

Wednesday’s hearing was the seventh day to be devoted to Rice’s case, which was originally scheduled for five total days of testimony and had its first hearing date on Nov. 3. During the Wednesday hearing, Rice spent the vast majority of the time being cross-examined by Rick Goodell, counsel for the New York Gaming Commission, which brought the case against Rice after local prosecutors declined to pursue criminal charges on the same allegations.

Goodell frequently used his cross-examination to get Rice to acknowledge that she had provided testimony in earlier interviews on the matters under examination, such as providing cash to racing-office personnel as “gratuities” and receiving the lists of entries from racing-office clerks who have since been fired by NYRA or had their licenses suspended. In addition, Goodell established that Rice loaned money to one of the clerks, Jose Morales, despite having doubts about whether he would pay her back.

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But despite those lines of questioning, Goodell did not manage to introduce substantive new elements to the case or establish “improper” grounds for Rice’s motives in providing the loans to Morales.

Earlier hearings had already established that Rice received 75 emails from Morales from Oct. 9, 2013 to Jan. 3, 2014, containing past-performance information about horses that could potentially run in races she was considering entering. At the time, and for four years prior – concurrent with the time that Rice began winning training titles at the tracks operated by NYRA – Rice had been distributing cash payments to racing-office and gate-crew personnel, usually around Christmas time.

At the Wednesday hearing, Rice acknowledged that Morales told her that he believed “he was being watched” prior to Morales leaving his job at NYRA in August of 2014. At that time, Rice testified on Wednesday during the cross-examination by Goodell, she acknowledged that she became “concerned” about the information Morales had provided to her.

Goodell spent some of his cross-examination attempting to establish that Rice did not have expectations to be repaid when she loaned Morales $600 in 2011 and then $1,200 in 2012, even after Morales had not repaid the first loan. Rice said that she had doubts about being repaid, but that she felt “compelled” to provide the loans because she “felt close to his family.”

When Goodell asked why Rice would have doubts about his ability to pay the loans back, Rice answered:

“I knew that he was a bit of a drinker and that he had a lot of domestic issues with his wife, that his wife might throw him out here or there, and that his lifestyle might be questionable,” she said.

Morales later resigned from the racing office and became a jockeys’ agent, but he had his license suspended for allowing improper access to his NYRA computer for several years.

Although Rice acknowledged that she received names of horses entered in a race prior to the entries being closed, she said that other trainers routinely received the same information. However, she did not cite any instances she knew in which trainers were provided with emailed files.

During his brief re-direct of Rice at the end of the hearing, Turro asked Rice why she did not report to NYRA officials that she had been receiving information from Morales after he told her he thought he was “being watched.” Rice replied that she had seen other trainers receive the same information and wasn’t aware it was impermissible to receive it.

“I didn’t know of any rule I was breaking,” Rice said.